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mayaspasta's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Murder, and Cultural appropriation
mariebrunelm's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This is one of those books that touches on really important topics but in a way that I didn't really enjoy. City of the Beasts celebrates the Amazon forest and keeps raising alarm on how it's treated and how it needs to be saved, which is sadly still relevant nearly 20 years after it was published. To do so, the author writes a YA / middle-grade adventure novel about a 15-year-old Californian boy with an excentric grand-mother who turns out to be some sort of Chosen One and to save the local inhabitants. This is an instance of the White Savior trope, in which a white foreigner saves grateful locals, to the point that he's initiated into their secrets. It didn't sit right with me.
As far as the writing style is concerned, the narration was so detached (too much in the "tell", not enough in the "show") that I had no empathy for the characters and didn't really buy into what I was reading. There was also the fact that in France, this book is published as an adult book when to me, it felt very middle-grade. There were lots of repetitions, and the characters were very cliché.
I really wanted to love this book, so I was all the more frustrated. This is probably because ever since I noticed City of the Beasts years and years ago, I built an image of it in my head that I was bound to miss when reading the actual book. I can't help but think that in the twenty years since this book was published, middle-grade has evolved and isn't written in the same way. The middle-grade books I've read recently were witty and fun when this one sounded rather preachy and a little condenscending towards the inhabitants of the Amazon forest.
As far as the writing style is concerned, the narration was so detached (too much in the "tell", not enough in the "show") that I had no empathy for the characters and didn't really buy into what I was reading. There was also the fact that in France, this book is published as an adult book when to me, it felt very middle-grade. There were lots of repetitions, and the characters were very cliché.
I really wanted to love this book, so I was all the more frustrated. This is probably because ever since I noticed City of the Beasts years and years ago, I built an image of it in my head that I was bound to miss when reading the actual book. I can't help but think that in the twenty years since this book was published, middle-grade has evolved and isn't written in the same way. The middle-grade books I've read recently were witty and fun when this one sounded rather preachy and a little condenscending towards the inhabitants of the Amazon forest.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation