A review by marjeannguyen
Panda-Monium by Stuart Gibbs

1.0

Couldn’t finish because of the stale stereotypes. Here is a list of the items that bothered me so much to the point I just couldn’t go past page 135.

1. The leadership roles are filled by men. Any position of power and respect is filled by a male character. The women that do have positions of power are either portrayed as fools, barely have any input, or are not respected by the rest of the characters. The doctor is male, the secretary is female, the main character is male with his sidekick girlfriend Summer (who is famous and a model), the owner of FunJungle is male, the lead security is male, etc.
2. The consistent fat shaming of Marge. This is teaching young people who read this book that someone’s size is fair game to make fun of and laugh about. I’m not okay with this and frankly appalled that this book is so popular.
3. The main suspect for the kidnapping (I didn’t finish this book so maybe this will change?) has a name that implies ethnic descent: Carlos Gomez. This is feeding the implicit bias that people who aren’t white are dangerous.

It is my strong belief that young adult authors should be ESPECIALLY mindful of these stereotypes and gender roles in their works. These young minds are so impressionable.

The story line itself is very cute and a wonderful idea for a plot.