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A review by delaney572e4
The State of Us by Shaun David Hutchinson
2.0
Maybe 1.5 stars? It feels so hard to classify because, as you will see, there were actually things I liked about this book but also on principle I can't rate it high.
This review does contain some slight spoilers.
So I'm going to start by playing the devil's advocate because there were things that I did like about this book.
I did actually quite like the main relationship in general. I found Dre and Dean to have a pretty cute romance. Was it stereotypical? Yeah. But like, it was really cute, and I liked their dynamic. Which I was definitely pleasantly surprised about because I didn't like the romance in the other SDH book I read.
I also found a lot of the writing related to what it is to be a teenager and feel lonely and feel like you have to conform to certain expectations very relatable. I was able to relate to both Dre and Dean in different ways, and I really just got a lot of the intensity of emotions that teenagers have.
But, we do have to get to the other stuff.
As neither a person of color or an aspec person, I cannot comment on the book's representation on those regards, but the comments of many others have indicated how poorly done it was.
The way the plot wraps up was totally contrived. I saw the leak of their relationship coming, it was hard not to. But that was not the plot point that bugged me. The one that did was the part where four teenagers were able to bring down a billionaire tech evil-genius in order to neatly wrap up the plot. It tied the plot up in a nice little bow, but I could not bring myself to find it even remotely believable.
Then, of course, there is the politics. That is really, truly, the issue here. I was even okay with Dean largely defending his mother to readers. Because even though it was coming across a bit strong on the defense (oh, boo-hoo, is it hard to be a woman in the republican party? I feel so sorry for you) she was still his mom, and he clearly loved her a lot, and it's hard to grow up and learn that our parents are maybe not as great as you thought they were, but you also can't just stop loving them.
But in the end it wasn't any of those things. It was just the overall lack of a stance against the republican party by attempting to take them back to before Trump (even though they were awful then too, just not as outright about it). I can do something like red white and royal blue, where it is such a blatantly alternate universe from ours. But this book just felt like it was avoiding actually holding the republican party accountable for their atrocious standpoints. Over the past four years, it is incredibly obvious that the republican party is centered on trumpism. It is centered on hate and fearmongering, and its extreme right wing views are evident in the fact that there are actual republican elected officials who openly believe in QAnon. However, the book completely avoids this by basically making them Republican Lite and ignoring the existence of Trump and the far right wing overtaking the party. They were portrayed as reasonable moderates, who just have different approaches to solving things. Instead, the worst traits of the republican party were shoved into the singular third party candidate who was basically a mix of Trump, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. And even though he is forced by the plot to drop out of the race at the end of the book, we have learned over the past four years that those values are not galvanized by a single person, but are rather a pervasive part of American culture.
Also, the republican candidate mom had a nice little speech at the end about loving her son which was like, okay, cool, but you're still homophobic and transphobic so I don't think that helps all the queer people your policies would harm.
Overall, it's not like there were any strong political stances in the book (except maybe conversion camps are Bad). It was some fairly spineless non-partisanship. If he didn't have a political statement to be made, then Hutchinson would have just been better off writing Dre and Dean's romance outside of a political setting.
This review does contain some slight spoilers.
So I'm going to start by playing the devil's advocate because there were things that I did like about this book.
I did actually quite like the main relationship in general. I found Dre and Dean to have a pretty cute romance. Was it stereotypical? Yeah. But like, it was really cute, and I liked their dynamic. Which I was definitely pleasantly surprised about because I didn't like the romance in the other SDH book I read.
I also found a lot of the writing related to what it is to be a teenager and feel lonely and feel like you have to conform to certain expectations very relatable. I was able to relate to both Dre and Dean in different ways, and I really just got a lot of the intensity of emotions that teenagers have.
But, we do have to get to the other stuff.
As neither a person of color or an aspec person, I cannot comment on the book's representation on those regards, but the comments of many others have indicated how poorly done it was.
The way the plot wraps up was totally contrived. I saw the leak of their relationship coming, it was hard not to. But that was not the plot point that bugged me. The one that did was the part where four teenagers were able to bring down a billionaire tech evil-genius in order to neatly wrap up the plot. It tied the plot up in a nice little bow, but I could not bring myself to find it even remotely believable.
Then, of course, there is the politics. That is really, truly, the issue here. I was even okay with Dean largely defending his mother to readers. Because even though it was coming across a bit strong on the defense (oh, boo-hoo, is it hard to be a woman in the republican party? I feel so sorry for you) she was still his mom, and he clearly loved her a lot, and it's hard to grow up and learn that our parents are maybe not as great as you thought they were, but you also can't just stop loving them.
But in the end it wasn't any of those things. It was just the overall lack of a stance against the republican party by attempting to take them back to before Trump (even though they were awful then too, just not as outright about it). I can do something like red white and royal blue, where it is such a blatantly alternate universe from ours. But this book just felt like it was avoiding actually holding the republican party accountable for their atrocious standpoints. Over the past four years, it is incredibly obvious that the republican party is centered on trumpism. It is centered on hate and fearmongering, and its extreme right wing views are evident in the fact that there are actual republican elected officials who openly believe in QAnon. However, the book completely avoids this by basically making them Republican Lite and ignoring the existence of Trump and the far right wing overtaking the party. They were portrayed as reasonable moderates, who just have different approaches to solving things. Instead, the worst traits of the republican party were shoved into the singular third party candidate who was basically a mix of Trump, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. And even though he is forced by the plot to drop out of the race at the end of the book, we have learned over the past four years that those values are not galvanized by a single person, but are rather a pervasive part of American culture.
Also, the republican candidate mom had a nice little speech at the end about loving her son which was like, okay, cool, but you're still homophobic and transphobic so I don't think that helps all the queer people your policies would harm.
Overall, it's not like there were any strong political stances in the book (except maybe conversion camps are Bad). It was some fairly spineless non-partisanship. If he didn't have a political statement to be made, then Hutchinson would have just been better off writing Dre and Dean's romance outside of a political setting.