Scan barcode
A review by alejandra_guerrero
The Key by Pauline Baird Jones
3.0
Where to start… It strikes me as absolutely arrogant when authors just make all aliens exactly like humans. Like we’re perfection and there’s absolutely no way life would have evolved any differently under any conditions. Or, as I’m inclined to believe for this book in particular, like God couldn’t have created anything different. And not just the people, the animals too. There’s some religious ideology permeating the story, it’s hard to miss. The strong nationalism is hard to miss, too. The aliens are all that the US isn’t (yes, the US, these people came from there, not Earth, nope, because just Americans have the intelligence and resources to do space travel, no one else). This book was so US-centric. And oh, so white! All the characters were white, even the freaking aliens, there was one ONE! latino character, he’s mentioned, he curses in Spanish, then he disappears, and I assume he dies a couple chapters later, since his unit was killed. Yeah. Oh, and Sarah’s foster mom, who is dead, was black. Her foster sister is a horrible person. They met because she and her friends almost killed Sara in the school bathroom. Not a very good rep.
Sarah is poorly described physically, I kinda thought she had long hair until in the middle of part three (there are four parts) it’s mentioned she’s got short hair. How short, who knows, just “longer than she used to wear it” (whatever that means). The love interest is constantly brushing it out of her face, and tucking it behind her ears, so, it couldn’t be that short, could it?
Finally, it felt way too long. There were a couple chapters that could have been shortened, and in the end there’s way too many things happening at the same time.
Despite everything, it was an entertaining read. I liked Sarah’s personality, and I was laughing at the way she tries (and, for the most part, succeeds) to rail the aliens and make them lose their cool. She is an empowered woman, fierce, and resourceful. Fyn is a bit bland, not much in terms of personality, and, even when it’s mentioned a couple times how dangerous he is, it never shows.
Sarah is poorly described physically, I kinda thought she had long hair until in the middle of part three (there are four parts) it’s mentioned she’s got short hair. How short, who knows, just “longer than she used to wear it” (whatever that means). The love interest is constantly brushing it out of her face, and tucking it behind her ears, so, it couldn’t be that short, could it?
Finally, it felt way too long. There were a couple chapters that could have been shortened, and in the end there’s way too many things happening at the same time.
Despite everything, it was an entertaining read. I liked Sarah’s personality, and I was laughing at the way she tries (and, for the most part, succeeds) to rail the aliens and make them lose their cool. She is an empowered woman, fierce, and resourceful. Fyn is a bit bland, not much in terms of personality, and, even when it’s mentioned a couple times how dangerous he is, it never shows.