A review by betweentheshelves
The Chandler Legacies by Abdi Nazemian

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I think the perspective and the story in this is interesting and important. It deals a lot with boarding school culture, especially that of privileged, wealthy students and how that impacts those at the school that don't have that. The students are given quite a lot of freedom at thsi school, and not a lot of the issues are really dealt with by the end of the book.

Honestly, the story suffers from having too many perspectives. While the story does come from the author's own experiences with boarding school, narrowing the focus would have allowed the narrative to breath a bit more. It would have allowed Nazemian the ability to really delve into one of the topics, like bullying or sexual harassment, instead of being spread too thin across a wide variety of issues. That's party why the ending doesn't really feel like an ending; we never get to see any of the issues from each of the narrators fully resolved by the time the story is over.

That being said, I do think Nazemian did a good job making each voice distinctive, for the most part. A lot was happening, but the voices didn't blend together too much.

All in all, if you enjoy hard-hitting boarding school stories, this might be your jam!
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