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A review by augustfairy
The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke
4.0
A lot of people criticizing this book don’t seem to realize that a lot of kids in the system don’t get adopted. Just because someone writes a book about them, doesn’t mean it’s harmful, if done correctly, which in my opinion, this book was.
The message of this story is that the things that make you unique are also the things that you can make use of. That these things don’t necessarily define you (Lotta’s smartness was more important than her fingers, Milou’s imagination and storytelling abilities were more important than her unruliness etc etc). That found family can be anything and it doesn’t have to be a traditional one, just people who love you and wouldn’t leave you.
(And someone did adopt all of them in the end especially because of their outside the box thinking and skillfulness.)
When it comes to the plot, yes, there were plot holes and at times I felt some things were described in too much detail while other things were left vague. Note, that this is a children’s book and some of the things that kids enjoy reading, adults might not and vice versa so I attributed this to the genre.
Overall, the prose was beautifully written, the story was interesting and well thought out and the message of the book was good.
(I don’t know if people who didn’t get it just didn’t make it to the end - some admittedly said so - or just got too offended in the beginning to see the big picture without that negative attitude. Admittedly, I was also skeptical in the beginning about the representation of orphans but in the end I do think the writer did a great job.)
The message of this story is that the things that make you unique are also the things that you can make use of. That these things don’t necessarily define you (Lotta’s smartness was more important than her fingers, Milou’s imagination and storytelling abilities were more important than her unruliness etc etc). That found family can be anything and it doesn’t have to be a traditional one, just people who love you and wouldn’t leave you.
(And someone did adopt all of them in the end especially because of their outside the box thinking and skillfulness.)
When it comes to the plot, yes, there were plot holes and at times I felt some things were described in too much detail while other things were left vague. Note, that this is a children’s book and some of the things that kids enjoy reading, adults might not and vice versa so I attributed this to the genre.
Overall, the prose was beautifully written, the story was interesting and well thought out and the message of the book was good.
(I don’t know if people who didn’t get it just didn’t make it to the end - some admittedly said so - or just got too offended in the beginning to see the big picture without that negative attitude. Admittedly, I was also skeptical in the beginning about the representation of orphans but in the end I do think the writer did a great job.)