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A review by tjlcody
My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier
2.0
I would have enjoyed this book a lot more if not for the semi-subtle, irritating preaching all throughout it.
Che and Sojourner I liked. Reasonably well-developed characters, and Che was extremely sympathetic with all the crap he went through.
The parents were insufferable. Seriously. Sally refuses to listen to a goddamn thing Che has to say, and doesn't that screw her in the end? And David... Well, shit, finish the book and you can guess how I feel about David.
Wasn't fond of Leilani either. Liked her better towards the end than the beginning, but the beginning did not set a good tone with me. Don't think I didn't catch that wage-gap quip during the first dinner the families had together (if you get that pissy over being called an 'actor' instead of an 'actress', you're a fucking child who needs to grow up). Of all the so-called 'inequalities' of this world that you could bring up, the wage discrepancies between people who make millions of more dollars a year than I do is not the way to win me over. Then there was that "ridding the building of all that misogyny" quip.
Let's not even get into the racism and gender-related preaching with Elon, Veronica and Leilani. And the fact that there were multiple characters throwing around "white boy/girl" unnecessarily, but THAT never gets called out as racist.
It was unnecessary, did nothing to advance the plot, and smacked of the author saying "I have some POLITICS I'd like to preach right now, so let's segue into something that does NOTHING for the plot so I can PREACH."
Those things irritated me. And as I've stated in past reviews, my patience for this let's-pepper-the-decent-story-with-preachy-political-messages trend is gone. All I wanted to do was read a goddamn Bad Seed adaptation, not get preached to about racism, sexism, and gender-binaries and shit. If the author had just stuck to the story, this would be getting a much higher rating.
Che and Sojourner I liked. Reasonably well-developed characters, and Che was extremely sympathetic with all the crap he went through.
The parents were insufferable. Seriously. Sally refuses to listen to a goddamn thing Che has to say, and doesn't that screw her in the end? And David... Well, shit, finish the book and you can guess how I feel about David.
Wasn't fond of Leilani either. Liked her better towards the end than the beginning, but the beginning did not set a good tone with me. Don't think I didn't catch that wage-gap quip during the first dinner the families had together (if you get that pissy over being called an 'actor' instead of an 'actress', you're a fucking child who needs to grow up). Of all the so-called 'inequalities' of this world that you could bring up, the wage discrepancies between people who make millions of more dollars a year than I do is not the way to win me over. Then there was that "ridding the building of all that misogyny" quip.
Let's not even get into the racism and gender-related preaching with Elon, Veronica and Leilani. And the fact that there were multiple characters throwing around "white boy/girl" unnecessarily, but THAT never gets called out as racist.
It was unnecessary, did nothing to advance the plot, and smacked of the author saying "I have some POLITICS I'd like to preach right now, so let's segue into something that does NOTHING for the plot so I can PREACH."
Those things irritated me. And as I've stated in past reviews, my patience for this let's-pepper-the-decent-story-with-preachy-political-messages trend is gone. All I wanted to do was read a goddamn Bad Seed adaptation, not get preached to about racism, sexism, and gender-binaries and shit. If the author had just stuck to the story, this would be getting a much higher rating.