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chronicallybookish's Reviews (1.53k)
TW: ableism, maybe antisemitism?
Ableism against mentally ill/mentally disabled people, especially those with schizophrenia and/or psychosis
Ableism against physically disabled people, especially wheel chair users, those with paralysis, and those with dwarfism—including uses of slurs such as cr*pple and m*idg*t.
Some weird romanticization of the n*zi bullshit of the “aryan race”.
Where do I start with this review? From the first chapter, the ableism was running rampant. The vast majority of the ableism in this book was against Penryn’s mother, who is, according to Ee, a paranoid schizophrenic.
I’m going to be entirely honest and say I don’t know very much about schizophrenia or paranoid schizophrenia specifically. However, I’d wager a bet that Susan Ee knows even less than I do.
But, hey, look at that. I did a twenty second google search. Let’s see what that says.
Question: Are people with schizophrenia dangerous?
Answer: The APA (American Psychiatric Association) says people with schizophrenia are no more likely to present dangerous or violent behavior than the general population.
so let’s get into Penryn’s mother’s portrayal, shall we?
And yet, Ee’s portrayal of a paranoid schizophrenic is exceedingly violent and deranged. Penryn’s mother suffers delusions of demons. As far as I know, that’s a pretty common delusion. At first, we simply hear of her paranoia surrounding being watched/hunted/followed/tormented by demons. That’s fair enough.
The first true issue comes in chapter 7 when Penryn’s mother desecrates a corpse. Yeah, you heard that right.
Penryn and her mom have been separated after her sister was taken. Penryn hides out in a building that has a dead body in the lobby. At one point, she goes into the lobby and finds that the body, previously laying exactly as it had fallen, has now been posed, had makeup applied sloppily to it, and has a knife through its chest that was not previously there.
“When I walk out of the corner office, I find that the dead man in the foyer has been messed with. He seems to have lost all dignity since the last time I saw him.
“Someone has arranged for one hand to be propped on his hip while the other reaches up to his hair. His long, shaggy hair has been spiked as though electrocuted, and his mouth is smeared drunkenly with lipstick. His eyes are wide open with black felt lines radiating like sun rays from his sockets. In the middle of his chest, a kitchen knife that wasn’t there an hour ago sticks out like a flagpole. Someone stabbed a dead body for reasons only the insane can fathom.
“My mother has found me.” (pg. 29)
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I honestly don’t know what to say. I feel like this speaks for itself. This event plays no role in the plot except to showcase the fact that her mother is deranged and dangerous. It perpetuates the false idea that schizophrenia causes people to be dangerous and plays into the stereotype that they are sadistic.
A few paragraphs later, we learn that Penryn’s sister, who uses a wheelchair due to paralysis from the waist down, is disabled because of an accident. Penryn says two-year-old Paige was found laying on the floor, with her mother standing over her. No one knows what really happened, but everyone believes it was the mother in a fit of “schizophrenic violence” (which as we have already established, isn’t actually a thing).
This implication is validated even more when, in the immediate aftermath of Paige’s accident, Penryn’s mother signs her up for half a dozen different self defense classes, and Penryn finds a collections of news paper clippings her mother has kept—articles about mothers who murdered their children. When her mother sees her looking at the articles, she simply tells her to keep going to the self defense classes.
In chapter 9, Penryn, Raffe, and her mother are attacked by gang members. They get separated, and as Penryn is escaping, she comes across a body on the floor. Her mother’s handiwork, so of course it’s not just a regular old self defense stabbing.
“I find a man lying in the hallway leading to the kitchen. His chest is bare, his shirt torn away. Six butter knives stick out of his flesh in a circular pattern. Someone has drawn a powder pink lipstick pentagram with the knives at the end of the points. Blood bubbles up from each of the knives. The man is all eyes and shock as he stares at the ruin of his chest as though unable to believe it has anything to do with him.
“My mother is safe.
“Seeing what she did to this man, I can’t help but wonder if that’s a good thing. She purposefully missed his heart, and he will slowly bleed to death.” (pg. 45)
Once again. What the fuck is this.
Again, there’s no real point to her mother torturing someone except to drive home the point that she’s dangerous, sadistic, and violent. I’m all for self defense. Man attacking you in post apocalyptic world? It’s kill or be killed. But sticking him with five butter knives, purposefully aiming to give him a slow, painful death, and then drawing on his body in lipstick… The whole point of that was the shock factor, relying heavily on the false “violent schizophrenic” stereotype.
After this point, we don’t see Penryn’s mother for a while. They’ve been separated, but it appears they are both heading in the same direction, since Penryn keeps finding “gifts” from her mother (rotten eggs, they’re rotten eggs.) along the way, always next to the site of brutal murders via cannibalism. At first, Penryn believes her mother could possibly be behind the cannibalistic murders, but she also thinks the eggs might be some kind of talisman against the evil that killed these people.
After the second or third set of bodies, they learn for a fact it isn’t her mother, but the fact that it is insinuated that she could be capable of this does so much harm, regardless of the fact that it isn’t truly her in the end.
Aside from a few more rotten eggs, we don’t see Penryn’s mother until page 172. But Penryn makes sure to tell us how “crazy” and “insane” her mother is plenty of times in the interim.
When we meet up with Penryn’s mother once again, she’s gotten herself a job guarding the fence surrounding the angels’ compound. Her job is to jab anyone who gets too close with some kind of pole that electrocutes them.
“My mother is more emotional about her job than her fellow prodders. She reaches as far as the fence will let her to shock as many people as possible. At one point she even cackles as she zaps a man for as long as she can before he staggers out of her reach. She looks for all the world as though she’s enjoying inflicting pain on people.” (pg. 172)
Penryn goes on to say that her mother is just afraid. She probably doesn’t even recognize the people as people. She probably thinks she’s in a cage in Hell surrounded by monsters, and finally has a weapon to fight back.
Being trapped in a delusion is fair enough. Portraying that state as causing her mother to be violent towards other people, torturing them and seemingly enjoying it, is very much not.
For the last bit of the book, Penryn’s mother doesn’t really feature. At the very end, she escapes with Penryn, but we barely see or hear from her.
I have a feeling that, as the series progresses, we’ll learn that Penryn’s mom isn’t actually responsible for Paige’s injury, and maybe even that her demonic delusions aren’t delusions at all. This isn’t a spoiler. I have nothing to base this on other than a gut feeling.
If this does happen, you may think—oh! That makes it okay then, because she’s not actually schizophrenic, so it’s not bad rep! That would be wrong. It is still atrocious rep.
Because even if Penryn’s mother’s violence and sadistic-ness isn’t due to schizophrenia in the end (which it may still be, I don’t know), Ee still attributes violence, a sadistic nature, murder, torture, and desecration of bodies as something that it makes sense for a schizophrenic person to do. Even if her mother doesn’t have paranoid schizophrenia, the entire first book, she commits these acts while we’re told she does, and therefore are told that these acts are something that can stem from schizophrenia. This is only possible through leaning into and heavily perpetuating the false stereotype that those with schizophrenia are violent and dangerous.
next, let’s talk about Paige, and other general ableism.
I have less to say here, because most of the other ableism is much more mild. Throughout the book, Penryn constantly calls Paige crippled or a cripple. This is considered a slur. She also calls Paige “wheelchair-bound” (pg. 116), which is considered offensive. The correct term is wheelchair user, because wheelchairs are not a disabled person’s binding or prison, they are their freedom.
Penryn also regularly refers to Paige as helpless and infantilizes her. I’m not sure how much of that is simply big sister-little sister dynamics, since Paige is 7, and how much is that Ee thinks disabled people and wheelchair users are helpless. I got the feeling that it was some of both.
I have one more thing I want to say about Paige, but it is a spoiler, so I’ll put it at the very end, clearly marked as a spoiler.
At the Aerie, Penryn meets an albino angel. My feelings on him are a little complicated. Albino=evil is a very common, and very ableist, trope. And in this world, angels are the bad guys. But Josaiah seems to be a kind of good guy—maybe? I’m not sure whether or not this plays into that stereotype.
However, the way Penryn talks about and describes him is offensive. She constantly refers to him as “The Albino” which felt… squicky. She didn’t know his name, but there were other ways to refer to him. Like, her target, the albino angel or simply the angel, since he’s the only angel of importance in that scene. I’m not sure how people with albinism tend to prefer to be referred to, so I can’t truly speak on that. It just didn’t quite feel right to me.
When Penryn first sees the angel, she isn’t sure why everyone is avoiding him. She basically says that lack of pigment isn’t any more disconcerting than giant wings (which, I guess fair? But also it really shouldn’t be disconcerting at all). And then she sees his eyes.
“They are bloodred. I’ve never seen anything like it. His irises are so large they take up most of his eyes. They are balls of crimson shot through with white, like miniature lightning bolts sizzling over blood.”
“The other angels, despite all their terrible aggression, look like they were made in Heaven. This one, on the other hand, looks like he walked right out of my mother’s nightmares.” (pg. 194)
This evil looking red-eyed angel plays on the popular stereotype that all albino people have red eyes, when in fact, the vast majority simply have very light blue or gray eyes. However, some people with albinism do have eyes that appear red, whether at times or most of the time, and using this trait and equating it to looking demonic is so incredibly offensive. Again, there is no reason Josaiah must be albino, other than the shock factor. If you removed that from his character, the story would be unchanged.
While psyching herself up to go talk to Josaiah, Penryn tells the reader that she’s “used to people with unnerving physical appearances” because of all the time she spends with Paige and her disabled friends. She gives the following examples:
“Her friend Judith was born with stumpy arms and tiny, malformed hands; Alex wobbled when he walked and had to contort his face painfully to form coherent words, which often let out an embarrassing amount of drool; Will was a quadriplegic who needed a pump to keep him breathing.” (pg. 194)
These descriptions seem so mean. She points out all the “unnerving” aspects of Paige’s friends in insulting ways. Again, it’s unnecessary. Visibly disabled people aren’t side shows to laugh and gawk at. The language Ee uses is purposefully derogatory. She hopes to illicit a disgusted reaction from her readers, to show how “good of a person” Paige is for taking these kids under her wings since her disability is more socially acceptable, and to show how tolerant Penryn is that she has put up with “more than [her] fair share of hanging around people whose physical appearance is unnerving” (pg. 194).
Lastly, for this section, on page 230, Penryn’s friend Dee-Dum is leading her to where he believes the children are being held and casually uses the M-slur, a highly offensive slur against people with dwarfism.
“All I can tell you is that there are rumors among the servents of… something that might be kids in that room. But who knows? Maybe they’re just m*****s.” (pg. 230)
finally, the antisemitism/white supremacy (I guess that’s what it is?)
Honestly, this was just two passing lines that made me seriously uncomfortable and made me go what the fuck. Penryn meets her first female angel, who she describes as the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. Then she uses two references to H*tler’s bullshit to describe her.
1. Her cornflower blue eyes would be the perfect reflection of innocence and all that is wholesome, except that there’s something sliding behind them. Something that hints that she should be the poster child for the master race.
2. Her Aryan eyes see it all and judge me.
Like, it’s not the worst, but I really feel like “Aryan”—and especially “master race” are not terms that we should be using, like, ever. Especially not to describe “the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen”. Yes, it’s being used to imply a shiftiness about her, but it’s still being used in a way that’s synonymous with beautiful. And even if it weren’t, I feel like using it at all in any context other than educational, historical, and blatantly condemning, makes light of the atrocities done in its name. And the way Ee equates it to beauty and perfection (even if also to a potentially evil shadiness), lends a romanticization to the term that makes me viscerally uncomfortable.
Since Ee herself is Asian, this may be some kind of weird internalized racism, but it’s still very weird, exceedingly unnecessary, and really just generally problematic.
All in all, this book disgusted me. I have to admit, the general plot and lore were interesting, but the extreme ableism that was constant throughout comepletely overshadowed those positives. Penryn wasn’t an interesting or unique main character. The romance between her and Raffe had no chemistry, no spark. And every plot twist was visible from a mile away.
It’s an average book with horrifying representation. I am horrified that I can’t find anyone talking about those aspects of the book, and I’m disgusted that it ever became popular.
Last but not least: my final thoughts on Paige
Spoilers abound after this point. You have been warned.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Seriously if you read anything after this, you cannot get mad at me for spoiling you
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay. For this to make sense, you’re going to need some context.
Remember those cannibalistic murders I mentioned before? About halfway through the book, we learn that they are being committed by these child-sized “low demons”. Penryn never gets a good look at them, but they’re all different shapes and sizes within the range of children. But they’re vicious, rabid, murderous, and cannibalistic.
When Penryn finally makes it to rescue Paige, shock of all shocks (please read that as if it was dripping in sarcasm) she has been turned into one such demon. She does seem to have some of her humanity in her. She loves Penryn, and sort of kills/eats an angel to defend her.
She can also walk.
Her legs remain smaller than they should be, due to the atrophied muscles from spending her life in a wheelchair, but she walks around without issue due to this transformation.
I wouldn’t exactly call this a miracle cure, considering she’s some creepy cannibalistic demon, but I think there is a very good chance that it will become one at the end of the series.
I feel like there are two possible outcomes:
1. Paige dies.
2. She gets turned back into a full human and is still able to walk.
I don’t really have anything against option 1. But option 2 is definitely miracle cure, and that is an inherently problematic and ableist trope. Here’s an article about this trope if you don’t understand why it is harmful: https://medium.com/the-establishment/the-miraculous-cure-trope-is-not-the-disability-representation-we-need-1608ee948349 The Miraculous Cure Is Not the Disability Representation We Need.
Ableism against mentally ill/mentally disabled people, especially those with schizophrenia and/or psychosis
Ableism against physically disabled people, especially wheel chair users, those with paralysis, and those with dwarfism—including uses of slurs such as cr*pple and m*idg*t.
Some weird romanticization of the n*zi bullshit of the “aryan race”.
Where do I start with this review? From the first chapter, the ableism was running rampant. The vast majority of the ableism in this book was against Penryn’s mother, who is, according to Ee, a paranoid schizophrenic.
I’m going to be entirely honest and say I don’t know very much about schizophrenia or paranoid schizophrenia specifically. However, I’d wager a bet that Susan Ee knows even less than I do.
But, hey, look at that. I did a twenty second google search. Let’s see what that says.
Question: Are people with schizophrenia dangerous?
Answer: The APA (American Psychiatric Association) says people with schizophrenia are no more likely to present dangerous or violent behavior than the general population.
so let’s get into Penryn’s mother’s portrayal, shall we?
And yet, Ee’s portrayal of a paranoid schizophrenic is exceedingly violent and deranged. Penryn’s mother suffers delusions of demons. As far as I know, that’s a pretty common delusion. At first, we simply hear of her paranoia surrounding being watched/hunted/followed/tormented by demons. That’s fair enough.
The first true issue comes in chapter 7 when Penryn’s mother desecrates a corpse. Yeah, you heard that right.
Penryn and her mom have been separated after her sister was taken. Penryn hides out in a building that has a dead body in the lobby. At one point, she goes into the lobby and finds that the body, previously laying exactly as it had fallen, has now been posed, had makeup applied sloppily to it, and has a knife through its chest that was not previously there.
“When I walk out of the corner office, I find that the dead man in the foyer has been messed with. He seems to have lost all dignity since the last time I saw him.
“Someone has arranged for one hand to be propped on his hip while the other reaches up to his hair. His long, shaggy hair has been spiked as though electrocuted, and his mouth is smeared drunkenly with lipstick. His eyes are wide open with black felt lines radiating like sun rays from his sockets. In the middle of his chest, a kitchen knife that wasn’t there an hour ago sticks out like a flagpole. Someone stabbed a dead body for reasons only the insane can fathom.
“My mother has found me.” (pg. 29)
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I honestly don’t know what to say. I feel like this speaks for itself. This event plays no role in the plot except to showcase the fact that her mother is deranged and dangerous. It perpetuates the false idea that schizophrenia causes people to be dangerous and plays into the stereotype that they are sadistic.
A few paragraphs later, we learn that Penryn’s sister, who uses a wheelchair due to paralysis from the waist down, is disabled because of an accident. Penryn says two-year-old Paige was found laying on the floor, with her mother standing over her. No one knows what really happened, but everyone believes it was the mother in a fit of “schizophrenic violence” (which as we have already established, isn’t actually a thing).
This implication is validated even more when, in the immediate aftermath of Paige’s accident, Penryn’s mother signs her up for half a dozen different self defense classes, and Penryn finds a collections of news paper clippings her mother has kept—articles about mothers who murdered their children. When her mother sees her looking at the articles, she simply tells her to keep going to the self defense classes.
In chapter 9, Penryn, Raffe, and her mother are attacked by gang members. They get separated, and as Penryn is escaping, she comes across a body on the floor. Her mother’s handiwork, so of course it’s not just a regular old self defense stabbing.
“I find a man lying in the hallway leading to the kitchen. His chest is bare, his shirt torn away. Six butter knives stick out of his flesh in a circular pattern. Someone has drawn a powder pink lipstick pentagram with the knives at the end of the points. Blood bubbles up from each of the knives. The man is all eyes and shock as he stares at the ruin of his chest as though unable to believe it has anything to do with him.
“My mother is safe.
“Seeing what she did to this man, I can’t help but wonder if that’s a good thing. She purposefully missed his heart, and he will slowly bleed to death.” (pg. 45)
Once again. What the fuck is this.
Again, there’s no real point to her mother torturing someone except to drive home the point that she’s dangerous, sadistic, and violent. I’m all for self defense. Man attacking you in post apocalyptic world? It’s kill or be killed. But sticking him with five butter knives, purposefully aiming to give him a slow, painful death, and then drawing on his body in lipstick… The whole point of that was the shock factor, relying heavily on the false “violent schizophrenic” stereotype.
After this point, we don’t see Penryn’s mother for a while. They’ve been separated, but it appears they are both heading in the same direction, since Penryn keeps finding “gifts” from her mother (rotten eggs, they’re rotten eggs.) along the way, always next to the site of brutal murders via cannibalism. At first, Penryn believes her mother could possibly be behind the cannibalistic murders, but she also thinks the eggs might be some kind of talisman against the evil that killed these people.
After the second or third set of bodies, they learn for a fact it isn’t her mother, but the fact that it is insinuated that she could be capable of this does so much harm, regardless of the fact that it isn’t truly her in the end.
Aside from a few more rotten eggs, we don’t see Penryn’s mother until page 172. But Penryn makes sure to tell us how “crazy” and “insane” her mother is plenty of times in the interim.
When we meet up with Penryn’s mother once again, she’s gotten herself a job guarding the fence surrounding the angels’ compound. Her job is to jab anyone who gets too close with some kind of pole that electrocutes them.
“My mother is more emotional about her job than her fellow prodders. She reaches as far as the fence will let her to shock as many people as possible. At one point she even cackles as she zaps a man for as long as she can before he staggers out of her reach. She looks for all the world as though she’s enjoying inflicting pain on people.” (pg. 172)
Penryn goes on to say that her mother is just afraid. She probably doesn’t even recognize the people as people. She probably thinks she’s in a cage in Hell surrounded by monsters, and finally has a weapon to fight back.
Being trapped in a delusion is fair enough. Portraying that state as causing her mother to be violent towards other people, torturing them and seemingly enjoying it, is very much not.
For the last bit of the book, Penryn’s mother doesn’t really feature. At the very end, she escapes with Penryn, but we barely see or hear from her.
I have a feeling that, as the series progresses, we’ll learn that Penryn’s mom isn’t actually responsible for Paige’s injury, and maybe even that her demonic delusions aren’t delusions at all. This isn’t a spoiler. I have nothing to base this on other than a gut feeling.
If this does happen, you may think—oh! That makes it okay then, because she’s not actually schizophrenic, so it’s not bad rep! That would be wrong. It is still atrocious rep.
Because even if Penryn’s mother’s violence and sadistic-ness isn’t due to schizophrenia in the end (which it may still be, I don’t know), Ee still attributes violence, a sadistic nature, murder, torture, and desecration of bodies as something that it makes sense for a schizophrenic person to do. Even if her mother doesn’t have paranoid schizophrenia, the entire first book, she commits these acts while we’re told she does, and therefore are told that these acts are something that can stem from schizophrenia. This is only possible through leaning into and heavily perpetuating the false stereotype that those with schizophrenia are violent and dangerous.
next, let’s talk about Paige, and other general ableism.
I have less to say here, because most of the other ableism is much more mild. Throughout the book, Penryn constantly calls Paige crippled or a cripple. This is considered a slur. She also calls Paige “wheelchair-bound” (pg. 116), which is considered offensive. The correct term is wheelchair user, because wheelchairs are not a disabled person’s binding or prison, they are their freedom.
Penryn also regularly refers to Paige as helpless and infantilizes her. I’m not sure how much of that is simply big sister-little sister dynamics, since Paige is 7, and how much is that Ee thinks disabled people and wheelchair users are helpless. I got the feeling that it was some of both.
I have one more thing I want to say about Paige, but it is a spoiler, so I’ll put it at the very end, clearly marked as a spoiler.
At the Aerie, Penryn meets an albino angel. My feelings on him are a little complicated. Albino=evil is a very common, and very ableist, trope. And in this world, angels are the bad guys. But Josaiah seems to be a kind of good guy—maybe? I’m not sure whether or not this plays into that stereotype.
However, the way Penryn talks about and describes him is offensive. She constantly refers to him as “The Albino” which felt… squicky. She didn’t know his name, but there were other ways to refer to him. Like, her target, the albino angel or simply the angel, since he’s the only angel of importance in that scene. I’m not sure how people with albinism tend to prefer to be referred to, so I can’t truly speak on that. It just didn’t quite feel right to me.
When Penryn first sees the angel, she isn’t sure why everyone is avoiding him. She basically says that lack of pigment isn’t any more disconcerting than giant wings (which, I guess fair? But also it really shouldn’t be disconcerting at all). And then she sees his eyes.
“They are bloodred. I’ve never seen anything like it. His irises are so large they take up most of his eyes. They are balls of crimson shot through with white, like miniature lightning bolts sizzling over blood.”
“The other angels, despite all their terrible aggression, look like they were made in Heaven. This one, on the other hand, looks like he walked right out of my mother’s nightmares.” (pg. 194)
This evil looking red-eyed angel plays on the popular stereotype that all albino people have red eyes, when in fact, the vast majority simply have very light blue or gray eyes. However, some people with albinism do have eyes that appear red, whether at times or most of the time, and using this trait and equating it to looking demonic is so incredibly offensive. Again, there is no reason Josaiah must be albino, other than the shock factor. If you removed that from his character, the story would be unchanged.
While psyching herself up to go talk to Josaiah, Penryn tells the reader that she’s “used to people with unnerving physical appearances” because of all the time she spends with Paige and her disabled friends. She gives the following examples:
“Her friend Judith was born with stumpy arms and tiny, malformed hands; Alex wobbled when he walked and had to contort his face painfully to form coherent words, which often let out an embarrassing amount of drool; Will was a quadriplegic who needed a pump to keep him breathing.” (pg. 194)
These descriptions seem so mean. She points out all the “unnerving” aspects of Paige’s friends in insulting ways. Again, it’s unnecessary. Visibly disabled people aren’t side shows to laugh and gawk at. The language Ee uses is purposefully derogatory. She hopes to illicit a disgusted reaction from her readers, to show how “good of a person” Paige is for taking these kids under her wings since her disability is more socially acceptable, and to show how tolerant Penryn is that she has put up with “more than [her] fair share of hanging around people whose physical appearance is unnerving” (pg. 194).
Lastly, for this section, on page 230, Penryn’s friend Dee-Dum is leading her to where he believes the children are being held and casually uses the M-slur, a highly offensive slur against people with dwarfism.
“All I can tell you is that there are rumors among the servents of… something that might be kids in that room. But who knows? Maybe they’re just m*****s.” (pg. 230)
finally, the antisemitism/white supremacy (I guess that’s what it is?)
Honestly, this was just two passing lines that made me seriously uncomfortable and made me go what the fuck. Penryn meets her first female angel, who she describes as the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. Then she uses two references to H*tler’s bullshit to describe her.
1. Her cornflower blue eyes would be the perfect reflection of innocence and all that is wholesome, except that there’s something sliding behind them. Something that hints that she should be the poster child for the master race.
2. Her Aryan eyes see it all and judge me.
Like, it’s not the worst, but I really feel like “Aryan”—and especially “master race” are not terms that we should be using, like, ever. Especially not to describe “the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen”. Yes, it’s being used to imply a shiftiness about her, but it’s still being used in a way that’s synonymous with beautiful. And even if it weren’t, I feel like using it at all in any context other than educational, historical, and blatantly condemning, makes light of the atrocities done in its name. And the way Ee equates it to beauty and perfection (even if also to a potentially evil shadiness), lends a romanticization to the term that makes me viscerally uncomfortable.
Since Ee herself is Asian, this may be some kind of weird internalized racism, but it’s still very weird, exceedingly unnecessary, and really just generally problematic.
All in all, this book disgusted me. I have to admit, the general plot and lore were interesting, but the extreme ableism that was constant throughout comepletely overshadowed those positives. Penryn wasn’t an interesting or unique main character. The romance between her and Raffe had no chemistry, no spark. And every plot twist was visible from a mile away.
It’s an average book with horrifying representation. I am horrified that I can’t find anyone talking about those aspects of the book, and I’m disgusted that it ever became popular.
Last but not least: my final thoughts on Paige
Spoilers abound after this point. You have been warned.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Seriously if you read anything after this, you cannot get mad at me for spoiling you
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay. For this to make sense, you’re going to need some context.
Remember those cannibalistic murders I mentioned before? About halfway through the book, we learn that they are being committed by these child-sized “low demons”. Penryn never gets a good look at them, but they’re all different shapes and sizes within the range of children. But they’re vicious, rabid, murderous, and cannibalistic.
When Penryn finally makes it to rescue Paige, shock of all shocks (please read that as if it was dripping in sarcasm) she has been turned into one such demon. She does seem to have some of her humanity in her. She loves Penryn, and sort of kills/eats an angel to defend her.
She can also walk.
Her legs remain smaller than they should be, due to the atrophied muscles from spending her life in a wheelchair, but she walks around without issue due to this transformation.
I wouldn’t exactly call this a miracle cure, considering she’s some creepy cannibalistic demon, but I think there is a very good chance that it will become one at the end of the series.
I feel like there are two possible outcomes:
1. Paige dies.
2. She gets turned back into a full human and is still able to walk.
I don’t really have anything against option 1. But option 2 is definitely miracle cure, and that is an inherently problematic and ableist trope. Here’s an article about this trope if you don’t understand why it is harmful: https://medium.com/the-establishment/the-miraculous-cure-trope-is-not-the-disability-representation-we-need-1608ee948349 The Miraculous Cure Is Not the Disability Representation We Need.
3.25 stars
Thank you so much to Scholastic and I Read YA for providing me an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The disability rep in this book? Phenomenal.
Daisy and Noah as characters? Great!
The idea behind the plot was also really interesting. I loved the musical aspects of the book, and I will forever adore the “suddenly viral” plot line.
There was so much about this book that had promise, I think the execution was just not up to par.
The writing itself was a little choppy. The narration didn’t resonate with me as a reader. The banter doesn’t flow, and the dialogue often felt scripted and therefore came off sounding stilted. This was compounded by the pacing of the novel. Everything moved too fast—from action to action to action. There was no time for anything to sink in. Something tense would happen, and we’d get maybe a paragraph of the character’s reactions to it, if we were lucky, but often just a sentence, and what we did get felt flat and disconnected from the character themself. This led to the feeling that nothing was happening at all, despite the fact that there was, in so many ways, so much going on.
The disability rep was, of course, my favorite thing about the book. It related to my personal experiences in many ways. Like Noah, I have anxiety and panic attacks and I have seen many therapists over many years, and been medicated. Like Daisy, I was raised Catholic and attend Mass every Sunday. (Also! The word Mass was capitalized! Which was very exciting to see, since it is supposed to be, but never is.) I don’t have cerebral palsy, so I cannot speak for that specific lived experience, but I really enjoyed the way it was portrayed. #ownvoices rep is the best rep.
I believe the anxiety rep is also own voices, but I’m not 100% positive on that. Despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that I have anxiety, the portrayal of Noah’s anxiety wasn’t my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe it was good representation. The everyday affects of Noah’s anxiety were very well done and very, very relateable. Because there was something about the writing that made it difficult for me to truly connect the characters and feel what they were feeling, the depictions on panic attacks resonate with me the way I wanted them to. However, I do think the descriptions were accurate to how a panic attack can feel (though they are of course different for everyone).
My main complaints, for lack of a better word, are simply in the execution falling short.
One example of this is the scene in which Noah tells his parents about his anxiety. It just felt melodramatic. Not Noah, but the reactions of his parents. They acted as if he was dying. Like he had been on the verge of taking his life because of this and they hadn’t known. It felt like the intensity of their guilt and fear was highly disproportionate to what Noah actually said. The dramatics of that scene really took me aback and took me out of the story. It was like,
“Hey, mom, dad? Can we talk? It’s important.”
“Of course, honey!”
“I’ve been really overwhelmed and stressed out lately. It feels like too much pressure and I’ve been having panic attacks. I think I need to see a therapist.”
“Oh my BABY!” *sobbing* “I can’t believe I almost lost you and I didn’t even know! I’m a failure of a parent!”
It was way too much, but the book acted as if it was a totally proportionate reaction. And maybe if Noah’s anxiety had been to the point that he was even remotely suicidal, it would have made sense. However that is not something that we as a reader are led to believe before this point, nor is it suggested or alluded to after this one scene, either. Noah has some general anxiety and a couple of panic attacks. I’m not trying to lessen the impact of that. Anxiety sucks. Panic attacks are literally the worst. And he needed help, both from his parents and a professional. It’s just that up to that point (and after) did not feel worthy of the reaction it was suddenly receiving. The actual portrayal I had read did not feel as if it matched up with how severe I was being told it was.
I wish the reaction had been toned down. I think the level of anxiety Noah exhibited throughout the book was perfect. It was an amount that I think many people living with anxiety experience and think “I’m fine, I don’t need help. I can still function so it’s not that bad. I don’t need therapy/meds.” I think we need more representation of that level of anxiety, the severe but not completely debilitating, where the characters do seek help and get help and see improvement in their symptoms. It felt like the reaction he recieved cheapened that.
Daisy’s representation felt much more real and steady. What we saw of her experiences from her POV and what how those around her seemed to view them matched up (aside from the ableism people projected, but that’s different, since it was blatantly called out as ableism).
I think my favorite parts of her rep was the religious aspects, probably because I can directly relate to it. There is definitely ableism in the way that disability is viewed in the Church, and it is something that needs to be addressed and pointed out more often. Disabled people are just regular people, and many of them don’t want their disability cured. We are not your inspiration, and unless we specifically ask for your prayers, we don’t want them. Especially not publicly.
However, I also liked that it was portrayed as ableism within the people and congregation and not within the religion and God Himself. I loved the character of the disabled priest and I loved the interactions that he and Daisy had. I also loved that she left her church and got out of that toxic environment, and I appreciated that she didn’t leave the religion completely. If she had, that would have been more than fair, and good on her if that had been her decision. I’m just someone who also finds a lot of comfort in my religion, so it meant a lot to see a character not give up on it.
In the end, this book wasn’t perfect, nor was it my favorite, but I truly believe it is worth the read. Daisy and Noah are great, the plot is interesting, and the disability rep alone makes me feel like everyone should read it. The writing was not my favorite, but if you can tolerate not-the-best writing, I think you should pick this up.
Thank you so much to Scholastic and I Read YA for providing me an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The disability rep in this book? Phenomenal.
Daisy and Noah as characters? Great!
The idea behind the plot was also really interesting. I loved the musical aspects of the book, and I will forever adore the “suddenly viral” plot line.
There was so much about this book that had promise, I think the execution was just not up to par.
The writing itself was a little choppy. The narration didn’t resonate with me as a reader. The banter doesn’t flow, and the dialogue often felt scripted and therefore came off sounding stilted. This was compounded by the pacing of the novel. Everything moved too fast—from action to action to action. There was no time for anything to sink in. Something tense would happen, and we’d get maybe a paragraph of the character’s reactions to it, if we were lucky, but often just a sentence, and what we did get felt flat and disconnected from the character themself. This led to the feeling that nothing was happening at all, despite the fact that there was, in so many ways, so much going on.
The disability rep was, of course, my favorite thing about the book. It related to my personal experiences in many ways. Like Noah, I have anxiety and panic attacks and I have seen many therapists over many years, and been medicated. Like Daisy, I was raised Catholic and attend Mass every Sunday. (Also! The word Mass was capitalized! Which was very exciting to see, since it is supposed to be, but never is.) I don’t have cerebral palsy, so I cannot speak for that specific lived experience, but I really enjoyed the way it was portrayed. #ownvoices rep is the best rep.
I believe the anxiety rep is also own voices, but I’m not 100% positive on that. Despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that I have anxiety, the portrayal of Noah’s anxiety wasn’t my favorite. Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe it was good representation. The everyday affects of Noah’s anxiety were very well done and very, very relateable. Because there was something about the writing that made it difficult for me to truly connect the characters and feel what they were feeling, the depictions on panic attacks resonate with me the way I wanted them to. However, I do think the descriptions were accurate to how a panic attack can feel (though they are of course different for everyone).
My main complaints, for lack of a better word, are simply in the execution falling short.
One example of this is the scene in which Noah tells his parents about his anxiety. It just felt melodramatic. Not Noah, but the reactions of his parents. They acted as if he was dying. Like he had been on the verge of taking his life because of this and they hadn’t known. It felt like the intensity of their guilt and fear was highly disproportionate to what Noah actually said. The dramatics of that scene really took me aback and took me out of the story. It was like,
“Hey, mom, dad? Can we talk? It’s important.”
“Of course, honey!”
“I’ve been really overwhelmed and stressed out lately. It feels like too much pressure and I’ve been having panic attacks. I think I need to see a therapist.”
“Oh my BABY!” *sobbing* “I can’t believe I almost lost you and I didn’t even know! I’m a failure of a parent!”
It was way too much, but the book acted as if it was a totally proportionate reaction. And maybe if Noah’s anxiety had been to the point that he was even remotely suicidal, it would have made sense. However that is not something that we as a reader are led to believe before this point, nor is it suggested or alluded to after this one scene, either. Noah has some general anxiety and a couple of panic attacks. I’m not trying to lessen the impact of that. Anxiety sucks. Panic attacks are literally the worst. And he needed help, both from his parents and a professional. It’s just that up to that point (and after) did not feel worthy of the reaction it was suddenly receiving. The actual portrayal I had read did not feel as if it matched up with how severe I was being told it was.
I wish the reaction had been toned down. I think the level of anxiety Noah exhibited throughout the book was perfect. It was an amount that I think many people living with anxiety experience and think “I’m fine, I don’t need help. I can still function so it’s not that bad. I don’t need therapy/meds.” I think we need more representation of that level of anxiety, the severe but not completely debilitating, where the characters do seek help and get help and see improvement in their symptoms. It felt like the reaction he recieved cheapened that.
Daisy’s representation felt much more real and steady. What we saw of her experiences from her POV and what how those around her seemed to view them matched up (aside from the ableism people projected, but that’s different, since it was blatantly called out as ableism).
I think my favorite parts of her rep was the religious aspects, probably because I can directly relate to it. There is definitely ableism in the way that disability is viewed in the Church, and it is something that needs to be addressed and pointed out more often. Disabled people are just regular people, and many of them don’t want their disability cured. We are not your inspiration, and unless we specifically ask for your prayers, we don’t want them. Especially not publicly.
However, I also liked that it was portrayed as ableism within the people and congregation and not within the religion and God Himself. I loved the character of the disabled priest and I loved the interactions that he and Daisy had. I also loved that she left her church and got out of that toxic environment, and I appreciated that she didn’t leave the religion completely. If she had, that would have been more than fair, and good on her if that had been her decision. I’m just someone who also finds a lot of comfort in my religion, so it meant a lot to see a character not give up on it.
In the end, this book wasn’t perfect, nor was it my favorite, but I truly believe it is worth the read. Daisy and Noah are great, the plot is interesting, and the disability rep alone makes me feel like everyone should read it. The writing was not my favorite, but if you can tolerate not-the-best writing, I think you should pick this up.
3.75 stars
Thank you Penguin Teen and Netgalley for an eARC of this book!
While not the best graphic novel I’ve read, this was still tons of fun. The artwork was beyond gorgeous. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t figure out what! It made me really want to check out other works by this illustrator.
The story itself was a little typical, a little cliche, but it was fast-paced and engaging. I was swept up pretty quickly. Towards the end it dragged, and the who-dunnit was very obvious, however it was still fun and I wasn’t left unsatisfied.
I liked Emsy and Ash a lot. Ben was a little too much, I just couldn’t connect to him. I loved Emsy and Joss at first. They were adorable together, but when it started getting strained between them their conversations just felt tedious and annoying. I feel like the scenes with her California friends after she’d left didn’t add anything to the story and they just ended up either boring or annoying me.
Also—who the hell says Cali? I’m pretty sure no one who has ever actually lived in “Cali” calls it that.
That got a little off topic. Anywayyyyy…
This was a fun, quick read. Perfect for a casual graphic novel reader and anyone looking for something witchy.
Thank you Penguin Teen and Netgalley for an eARC of this book!
While not the best graphic novel I’ve read, this was still tons of fun. The artwork was beyond gorgeous. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t figure out what! It made me really want to check out other works by this illustrator.
The story itself was a little typical, a little cliche, but it was fast-paced and engaging. I was swept up pretty quickly. Towards the end it dragged, and the who-dunnit was very obvious, however it was still fun and I wasn’t left unsatisfied.
I liked Emsy and Ash a lot. Ben was a little too much, I just couldn’t connect to him. I loved Emsy and Joss at first. They were adorable together, but when it started getting strained between them their conversations just felt tedious and annoying. I feel like the scenes with her California friends after she’d left didn’t add anything to the story and they just ended up either boring or annoying me.
Also—who the hell says Cali? I’m pretty sure no one who has ever actually lived in “Cali” calls it that.
That got a little off topic. Anywayyyyy…
This was a fun, quick read. Perfect for a casual graphic novel reader and anyone looking for something witchy.
The Duke and I
2.5 stars
Ugh. Writing was good, story was good, characters were good. For the most part I enjoyed it.
But *that* scene was so much worse than I’d expected. I knew they toned it down a bit for the show, but wow. And the utter lack of consequences, lack of remorse. Ruined everything.
Likewise, Simon’s stutter was poorly handled, in my opinion. Yes, most of the ableism surrounding it came from his father, which I’m fine with. Villains being ableist and thoroughly rebuked for such things are fine. Simon, too, had a lot of ableism and self hate, but again, internalized ableism is a very common, real thing.
But there were just some comments that really made it seem like if Simon *hadn’t* learned to talk well, he would be unworthy or damaged. As if it was only all okay because 90% of the time Simon was well spoken and didn’t stutter.
In the extended epilogue, we see one of Colin’s children is now nonverbal at 3, and Daphne thinks “[Penelope wanted] to take an action, to make her child whole.” A nonverbal person IS whole, and it’s quite ableist to say otherwise.
This was also quite different from the Netflix show, which I did enjoy much more than I enjoyed this. The characters were the same, and the general plot of Daphne and Simon was mostly the same, but we *only* saw Daphne and Simon. In the Bridgerton show, we see bits and pieces of each Bridgerton sibling A-E, as well as glimpses into the Featheringtons life. In The Duke and I, we get POVs only if Simon and Daphne with like, a couple paragraphs exceptions from Lady Bridgerton’s POV. We see a good bit of Anthony, Benedict, and Colin, and a few fun quips from Hyacinth, but we hear nothing at all from Eloise, about one sentence from Pen, two from Lady Danbury, and not much else. The mystery of Lady Whistledown is not explored. Her columns preface each chapter and are referred to throughout, but no one searches for her identity. Generally, the plot is much simplified in the book. I still enjoyed it, but the show was more engaging to me.
2.5 stars
Ugh. Writing was good, story was good, characters were good. For the most part I enjoyed it.
But *that* scene was so much worse than I’d expected. I knew they toned it down a bit for the show, but wow. And the utter lack of consequences, lack of remorse. Ruined everything.
Likewise, Simon’s stutter was poorly handled, in my opinion. Yes, most of the ableism surrounding it came from his father, which I’m fine with. Villains being ableist and thoroughly rebuked for such things are fine. Simon, too, had a lot of ableism and self hate, but again, internalized ableism is a very common, real thing.
But there were just some comments that really made it seem like if Simon *hadn’t* learned to talk well, he would be unworthy or damaged. As if it was only all okay because 90% of the time Simon was well spoken and didn’t stutter.
In the extended epilogue, we see one of Colin’s children is now nonverbal at 3, and Daphne thinks “[Penelope wanted] to take an action, to make her child whole.” A nonverbal person IS whole, and it’s quite ableist to say otherwise.
This was also quite different from the Netflix show, which I did enjoy much more than I enjoyed this. The characters were the same, and the general plot of Daphne and Simon was mostly the same, but we *only* saw Daphne and Simon. In the Bridgerton show, we see bits and pieces of each Bridgerton sibling A-E, as well as glimpses into the Featheringtons life. In The Duke and I, we get POVs only if Simon and Daphne with like, a couple paragraphs exceptions from Lady Bridgerton’s POV. We see a good bit of Anthony, Benedict, and Colin, and a few fun quips from Hyacinth, but we hear nothing at all from Eloise, about one sentence from Pen, two from Lady Danbury, and not much else. The mystery of Lady Whistledown is not explored. Her columns preface each chapter and are referred to throughout, but no one searches for her identity. Generally, the plot is much simplified in the book. I still enjoyed it, but the show was more engaging to me.