soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2015-01-30 02:13 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2015-01-30 02:13 pm
Dangerous, by Shannon Hale
I found this book weirdly...upsetting, idk.
I liked the book rather a lot to begin with. It's a younger-end-of-YA book about teenage superheroes, astronaut boot camp, and aliens invading the earth. The main character (Maisie) is latina and was born with only one hand. And Maisie and her family are SUPER AMAZING GREAT.
But starting with what happened with Ruthless I just felt very upset about pretty much everything. It's about a group of young teens who are supposed to be a team together in that team-as-family sort of way but three of the five of them end up dying, by which I mean being killed by the other two, which is just everything I don't want in a book.
(it doesn't help that of the two who survive one is Wilder and I REALLY DISLIKE WILDER. I mean I know in the end he was doing what he was doing for relatively good reasons but I still find him an untrustworthy creep. And Maisie/Wilder is the endgame ship, noooo.)
And because this is a book where the main character has parents who are actually GOOD PARENTS who do everything possible to keep Maisie safe and away from the whole situation, it made the whole trope of "teenager has to save the world" a million times more upsetting because a) the measures her parents go to drive home just how awful and dangerous and frightening the situation is and b) YEAH IT SHOULD BE THE ADULTS WHO HAVE THE LIFE-OR-DEATH RESPONSIBILITIES NOT THE FOURTEEN (?) YEAR OLD.
Anyways. I'm pretty sure that objectively speaking this is a good book. But it is super duper not for me.
I liked the book rather a lot to begin with. It's a younger-end-of-YA book about teenage superheroes, astronaut boot camp, and aliens invading the earth. The main character (Maisie) is latina and was born with only one hand. And Maisie and her family are SUPER AMAZING GREAT.
But starting with what happened with Ruthless I just felt very upset about pretty much everything. It's about a group of young teens who are supposed to be a team together in that team-as-family sort of way but three of the five of them end up dying, by which I mean being killed by the other two, which is just everything I don't want in a book.
(it doesn't help that of the two who survive one is Wilder and I REALLY DISLIKE WILDER. I mean I know in the end he was doing what he was doing for relatively good reasons but I still find him an untrustworthy creep. And Maisie/Wilder is the endgame ship, noooo.)
And because this is a book where the main character has parents who are actually GOOD PARENTS who do everything possible to keep Maisie safe and away from the whole situation, it made the whole trope of "teenager has to save the world" a million times more upsetting because a) the measures her parents go to drive home just how awful and dangerous and frightening the situation is and b) YEAH IT SHOULD BE THE ADULTS WHO HAVE THE LIFE-OR-DEATH RESPONSIBILITIES NOT THE FOURTEEN (?) YEAR OLD.
Anyways. I'm pretty sure that objectively speaking this is a good book. But it is super duper not for me.