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kirstinlwx's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
With a bit of a tough start, infuriating because of its incredibly realistic depiction of social systems and programming in Scarborough/the GTA, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be the book for me. But then I couldn’t put it down.
My heart ached and burst for all of these characters, and the weaving of their stories struck realization after realization of deep interconnectedness. Hernandez depicts each of these characters, even those who only get a single chapter, with a depth and rawness that I couldn’t look away from.
The recognition of the human experience in this book is beautiful, and I’ll be recommending it to many people (especially my friends in the nonprofit sector).
My heart ached and burst for all of these characters, and the weaving of their stories struck realization after realization of deep interconnectedness. Hernandez depicts each of these characters, even those who only get a single chapter, with a depth and rawness that I couldn’t look away from.
The recognition of the human experience in this book is beautiful, and I’ll be recommending it to many people (especially my friends in the nonprofit sector).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Ableism, Sexual content, and Classism
Minor: Domestic abuse, Hate crime, and Police brutality
kelly_e's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Title: Scarborough
Author: Catherine Hernandez
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.75
Pub Date: May 22, 2017
T H R E E • W O R D S
Tender • Necessary • Authentic
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Scarborough is a real-life, low-income and culturally diverse neighbourhood east of Toronto, that suffers from high rates of poverty, drugs, crime, and urban blight. Told from multiple perspectives Scarborough tells a fictionalized coming-of-age account of three young children, and the tight-knit community leaning on one another in an attempt to rise above aversity and discrimination.
💭 T H O U G H T S
Of the five contenders for Canada Reads 2022, Scarborough was the last one I picked up. And I must say I was absolutely blown away by it. In fact, I was amazed by the quality of this year's Canada Reads shortlist in general, as well as the fascinating debates, which took place from March 28 - 31.
Back to the book, this is another heavy hitting Canada Reads finalist where the structure gave me a front row seat into the minds of each character, thus allowing me to understand the workings of the mind on both an individual and collective level. Told over the span of a year, it was a coming-of-age story but also a story of community, or coming together through the most difficult of circumstances.
Catherine Hernandez writes with such grace, and paints the scene so vividly there's no need to have an awareness of the area of Scarborough ahead of time. In fact, the conditions, the themes and the experiences she explores in this book are so real, and apply to so many different low-income communities across Canada, and the world. Systemic discrimination is so real, and we as a society often turn a blind eye.
Written primarily from a youth perspective, something I greatly appreciated, really opened my eyes to societal issues from the eyes of a child. How they are forced to grow up quickly or take on rolls no child should have to. And yet, I cannot talk about this book without mentioning Ms. Hina. She was a ray of light from start to finish, attempting to create a safe space for the kids and their families. Every impoverished community, need 1000 people like her, willing to risk their personal security to help those less fortunate.
Scarborough is filled with so much human ugliness, but there's also an undercurrent of love and connection. There were moments I felt so ashamed of humanity and in the next moment I'd be overcome with love for humanity. The array of emotion felt so human. There were tears and there was laughter. There was heartbreak and there was joy. Bing, brought so much light and joy to my time with this book. His evolution was absolutely beautiful to watch unfold.
It did not surprise me to learn Catherine Hernandez is a screenwriter, as this book read very much like a script. My only criticism would be that I wanted so much more of these characters, something the writing style didn't allow for.
I'll definitely be keeping my eyes out for whatever Catherine Hernandez writes next, she's just brilliant! Please, do yourself a favourite and pick this book up. It is my hope that it can spark change and that there are a million other Ms. Hina's out there. I've since learned it has been adapted for TV, and I'd be interested in checking out.
Now that I've completed this year's shortlist, I hope to pick up some contenders from past years, and continue exploring the 2022 longlist selections as well.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• all Canadians
• readers who like realistic fiction
• social workers/case workers/policy makers... the list goes on and on
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"'You will never be too much. You will never be too little, Bernard. You be you.' My heart fluttered hearing her says that."
Author: Catherine Hernandez
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.75
Pub Date: May 22, 2017
T H R E E • W O R D S
Tender • Necessary • Authentic
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Scarborough is a real-life, low-income and culturally diverse neighbourhood east of Toronto, that suffers from high rates of poverty, drugs, crime, and urban blight. Told from multiple perspectives Scarborough tells a fictionalized coming-of-age account of three young children, and the tight-knit community leaning on one another in an attempt to rise above aversity and discrimination.
💭 T H O U G H T S
Of the five contenders for Canada Reads 2022, Scarborough was the last one I picked up. And I must say I was absolutely blown away by it. In fact, I was amazed by the quality of this year's Canada Reads shortlist in general, as well as the fascinating debates, which took place from March 28 - 31.
Back to the book, this is another heavy hitting Canada Reads finalist where the structure gave me a front row seat into the minds of each character, thus allowing me to understand the workings of the mind on both an individual and collective level. Told over the span of a year, it was a coming-of-age story but also a story of community, or coming together through the most difficult of circumstances.
Catherine Hernandez writes with such grace, and paints the scene so vividly there's no need to have an awareness of the area of Scarborough ahead of time. In fact, the conditions, the themes and the experiences she explores in this book are so real, and apply to so many different low-income communities across Canada, and the world. Systemic discrimination is so real, and we as a society often turn a blind eye.
Written primarily from a youth perspective, something I greatly appreciated, really opened my eyes to societal issues from the eyes of a child. How they are forced to grow up quickly or take on rolls no child should have to. And yet, I cannot talk about this book without mentioning Ms. Hina. She was a ray of light from start to finish, attempting to create a safe space for the kids and their families. Every impoverished community, need 1000 people like her, willing to risk their personal security to help those less fortunate.
Scarborough is filled with so much human ugliness, but there's also an undercurrent of love and connection. There were moments I felt so ashamed of humanity and in the next moment I'd be overcome with love for humanity. The array of emotion felt so human. There were tears and there was laughter. There was heartbreak and there was joy. Bing, brought so much light and joy to my time with this book. His evolution was absolutely beautiful to watch unfold.
It did not surprise me to learn Catherine Hernandez is a screenwriter, as this book read very much like a script. My only criticism would be that I wanted so much more of these characters, something the writing style didn't allow for.
I'll definitely be keeping my eyes out for whatever Catherine Hernandez writes next, she's just brilliant! Please, do yourself a favourite and pick this book up. It is my hope that it can spark change and that there are a million other Ms. Hina's out there. I've since learned it has been adapted for TV, and I'd be interested in checking out.
Now that I've completed this year's shortlist, I hope to pick up some contenders from past years, and continue exploring the 2022 longlist selections as well.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• all Canadians
• readers who like realistic fiction
• social workers/case workers/policy makers... the list goes on and on
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"'You will never be too much. You will never be too little, Bernard. You be you.' My heart fluttered hearing her says that."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Islamophobia
Moderate: Addiction, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Abandonment, and Classism
Minor: Death and Fire/Fire injury
police profilingbrogan7's review against another edition
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
I liked parts of this book a lot, and then other aspects really didn't work for me. The opening with the description of a move in the night from the point of view of a child, was absolutely gripping and had true-to-life details that had me thinking I was going to love this book. The multiple characters with many different circumstances, most of them difficult, gave a strong portrayal of a community as opposed to a single protagonist following a hero's journey trajectory.
However, some things that happened stretched believability to the point where I found it kind of cringy. The parent who defends the literacy worker with a letter--a very literate letter--just didn't make sense with the realities of that family and how generations struggle not only with literacy but with trust of the system (a system that has failed them in many ways). The child who is diagnosed with autism and gets special programming that helps him succeed--the literacy worker who wasn't willing to post a flyer for her own program, who gives the family $50 for the mother to take a taxi to the boy's appointment with a specialist...
Instead of analyzing real problems and illuminating a convergence of disadvantages that are often overwhelming to people and crunch them into poor choices because no choice is the good choice, this book reached for easy answers and betrayed a kind of blindness of the middle class to the realities that people deal with.
There's a line at one point where a parent asks their child to give something up--the older sister surrendering something to her younger brother, and when the girl says yes, she will, the text narrates: "only a neglectful parent could think that was a real yes"--but is that what a child thinks about her own parent? No, that's what a writer thinks from a very great distance and with a lack of compassion for the over-stretched parent just trying to cope, trying to keep both kids happy, one of them more given to tantrums than the other. Calling that a "neglectful parent" says a lot about the writer but doesn't inform the reader about the characters--the ones we really care about.
The one thing I did like about this book is that it asked the question, what does success look like? What does improvement look like? Not one person at a time but a community at a time?--I just wish she had somehow answered that question more fully and more humanly.
However, some things that happened stretched believability to the point where I found it kind of cringy. The parent who defends the literacy worker with a letter--a very literate letter--just didn't make sense with the realities of that family and how generations struggle not only with literacy but with trust of the system (a system that has failed them in many ways). The child who is diagnosed with autism and gets special programming that helps him succeed--the literacy worker who wasn't willing to post a flyer for her own program, who gives the family $50 for the mother to take a taxi to the boy's appointment with a specialist...
Instead of analyzing real problems and illuminating a convergence of disadvantages that are often overwhelming to people and crunch them into poor choices because no choice is the good choice, this book reached for easy answers and betrayed a kind of blindness of the middle class to the realities that people deal with.
There's a line at one point where a parent asks their child to give something up--the older sister surrendering something to her younger brother, and when the girl says yes, she will, the text narrates: "only a neglectful parent could think that was a real yes"--but is that what a child thinks about her own parent? No, that's what a writer thinks from a very great distance and with a lack of compassion for the over-stretched parent just trying to cope, trying to keep both kids happy, one of them more given to tantrums than the other. Calling that a "neglectful parent" says a lot about the writer but doesn't inform the reader about the characters--the ones we really care about.
The one thing I did like about this book is that it asked the question, what does success look like? What does improvement look like? Not one person at a time but a community at a time?--I just wish she had somehow answered that question more fully and more humanly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Addiction, Child death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Fire/Fire injury
Weird spiritual shit at the very end involving a fantasy of the perfect nuclear family
More...