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careinthelibrary's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Kidnapping, Racism, Trafficking, Colonisation, Physical abuse, Ableism, Child abuse, and Confinement
Moderate: Grief, Colonisation, Death, Medical content, and Slavery
emily_mh's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
A lot of this book is confronting. It explicitly shows the violence of ableism, in particular the history of experimentation on disabled people. But it is so important to know about this and bring light to it as a lot of people, especially middle-graders, are likely unaware of how deep ableism runs.
Mary was a great MC. She's at a point in her life when she is learning so much about the world around her and questioning what she has been taught to believe. This made for a rich inner world and some fantastic character development. However, I also liked that Mary didn't have it all figured out by the end of the book, as most of the questions she was asking did not (and still do not) have simple answers. I was so emotionally tied up in her heartbreaking and hopeful story.
In sum, I loved this read and cannot wait to pick up the sequel!
Graphic: Kidnapping, Child abuse, and Ableism
Moderate: Racism, Physical abuse, Child death, Violence, Grief, Colonisation, Religious bigotry, Death, and Car accident
Minor: Sexism, War, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Blood, Medical content, Addiction, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Domestic abuse, Confinement, Murder, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Alcohol, and Excrement
Moderate: loss of a loved one Minor: illness, ethnic racism, biracial racism, huntingkitkatsreading's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Graphic: Physical abuse and Ableism
Moderate: Child death and Kidnapping
Minor: Slavery and Racism
alwaysshure's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Moderate: Kidnapping
Minor: Slavery
Moderate: Audism (no tag on storygraph)flordemaga's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
If I could change one thing about the book, it would be that sometimes it ends up doing a lot of telling when I know that its showing is SO powerful.
Graphic: Ableism and Kidnapping
Moderate: Death and Colonisation
Minor: Slavery and Racism
courtneyfalling's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
2.0
However, this book did not handle its themes of race well at all. One of the characters, Thomas, is a Black freedman who faces continued discrimination from the surrounding community.
I was hoping the book would successfully challenge both anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in the end, but instead, it wrapped everything into a neat lesson delivered to Mary by her father: "If you're just nice to people, unlike your ancestors, everything can be forgiven!" What about the stolen land you're still living on? What about reparations? Heck, on a basic level, what about pointing out your neighbors' continued discrimination and holding everyone in your community to a higher standard of care and equity? This felt like a terrible historical and political lesson for kids to internalize.
Some of the basic factual details also seemed inaccurate, especially around the book's timeline: what customs would have been typical at a given time, when settlers would have arrived or when events would have occurred, what relations between nearby Indigenous nations and white settlers would have been like in the different time periods mentioned, and so on. There was a fuzzy feeling of offness throughout retellings of local settlers' histories. Which is especially dangerous when potentially incorrect information is fueling how the book represents racism.
Graphic: Child death, Colonisation, Ableism, Grief, Kidnapping, and Racism
Minor: Slavery