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ninetalevixen 's review for:
The Land of Forgotten Girls
by Erin Entrada Kelly
Recently I've been reading a lot of MG, which is a literary stage I seem to have mostly skipped over. Books like this really show me what I've been missing out on — they take me back to a time when life was a lot simpler, though still complex and frustrating and vibrant. A time when I believed in fairy tales to varying extents depending on the day, my mood, the current phase of the moon (that sounds sarcastic, it's not actually), et cetera. A time when the world was full of possibilities and when I had no doubts that I was the hero of my own story.
Having grown up listening to stories from my parents, I adored the little fantasies mentioned throughout: from Auntie Jove to the Sister Princesses narrative, they balance out the bleakness of other parts of the narrative. They're cute little moments, reminding you that as much as Sol has had to grow up fast to take care of her little sister, she's still just a kid herself. And although she's twelve years old, this book doesn't pull punches. Morality isn't black and white; Sol and Manny aren't perfect kids (in fact, they do some objectively not-great things, like shoplifting and bullying other kids); Vea isn't a comic-book villainess. There's growth and development as the book goes on, in a very natural progression rather than a contrived "this story should probably contain some paradigm / worldview shifts" way.
And considering the main plot is one that I suspect quite a few readers will be able to relate to (whether they are themselves immigrants like the sisters, or their parents or grandparents were but they still don't quite feel like they belong), it's so important that it's handled so sensitively and sympathetically. It's not all good and it's not all bad, and the same is true of the characters and every situation they find themselves in; above all, though, it's a story that reminds you to be kind.
content warnings:
rep:
Having grown up listening to stories from my parents, I adored the little fantasies mentioned throughout: from Auntie Jove to the Sister Princesses narrative, they balance out the bleakness of other parts of the narrative. They're cute little moments, reminding you that as much as Sol has had to grow up fast to take care of her little sister, she's still just a kid herself. And although she's twelve years old, this book doesn't pull punches. Morality isn't black and white; Sol and Manny aren't perfect kids (in fact, they do some objectively not-great things, like shoplifting and bullying other kids); Vea isn't a comic-book villainess. There's growth and development as the book goes on, in a very natural progression rather than a contrived "this story should probably contain some paradigm / worldview shifts" way.
And considering the main plot is one that I suspect quite a few readers will be able to relate to (whether they are themselves immigrants like the sisters, or their parents or grandparents were but they still don't quite feel like they belong), it's so important that it's handled so sensitively and sympathetically. It's not all good and it's not all bad, and the same is true of the characters and every situation they find themselves in; above all, though, it's a story that reminds you to be kind.
content warnings:
Spoiler
racism, physical & verbal child abuse, child neglect, physical & verbal bullyingrep: