hot take I think I just can’t read YA anymore. they all seem to be written (if you excuse the generalities and stereotyping) for a generation incapable of patience in pacing, and so there’s no end of exposition dumping that has to happen asap…well before we care about anyone or anything in the book.
There are so many shortcuts used here to try and get us to empathize with Bree despite having known her for about ten seconds and being way more confused (as, I will note, one should be). You’ve got the trauma of losing her mother right off the bat, which will serve as her guiding/driving motivation to sort of go…sure! when she’s confronted with evidence that magic is real (a realization she will have multiple! times! over! because it turns out that not only is magic real but there is MULTIPLE TYPES OF REAL MAGIC) (and yes, she’s a very special snowflake in all of them).
so many reveals in this book made me want to burst out laughing. Patricia, the worst therapist I’ve seen committed to screen/book in a while, thoroughly busting the stereotype of Competent Black Female Therapist? From a) assuming that what Bree needed is a random primer in a totally different type of magic that she obviously must know about (she doesn’t), to b) her observation that “I was just about to diagnose you with Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder” after like…one session to c) calling Bree eight (!) times in a day when she runs away?
Everyone is calling everyone way too much in this book, they’re all meant to be teenagers in the here and now, I can barely get millenials to call me.
The author’s note makes it clear that Deonn had a lot of big themes for these books and decided that all of them needed to be in. It’s a pity, because there’s enough plot in this single book to have powered a measured build up that then culminated in an earnt payoff–as it were, I couldn’t keep track of any of the characters (nor figure which ones I was supposed to care about and which ones were Racist White People). Bree’s supposed best friend Alice is mega chill about her friend suddenly vanishing off the face of the earth and coming back to their dorm at all hours with bruises. Things happen in a WEEK and we’re meant to see them as indicative of long-term.
I’m getting disjointed, tl;dr this book was not for me, hope it works for you.