A review by gschwabauer
Trace by Pat Cummings
2.0
Any girl, anywhere in the story: (Does or says something, no matter how common)
Trace: "I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that I will NEVER UNDERSTAND GIRLS."
Seriously, I get that I have a sore spot around these kinds of remarks, but there were like 10-12 of them! It was constant! I was so confused--the story is trying to bring awareness to the suffering of young black children in the 1860s through a ghost story centered around a forgotten historical tragedy (brilliant idea and I was ready to love it) but then the sexism is just...relentless. The narrative makes fun of the teacher over and over for being fat and for I guess having a cold one day? Trace seems to have a crush on every unrelated female who enters the story except one girl who is repeatedly framed as "childish" because I guess she's kind of unusual and not taken seriously even though she's their peer. They do become friends, but it feels like Trace is always affectionately laughing at her inside, which I guess works if you're watching your three-year-old child do something weird at a family picnic like "I'm not sure why he does that flamingo dance but we love him the way he is!" but just comes across as condescending between same-aged peers.
Characters are stereotypes: mean girl classmate the protagonist inexplicably has a crush on who will eventually be won over by his coolness in some dramatic moment, "nerd" girl who literally speaks using lengthy thesaurus terms in every sentence, alleged best friend who is emotionally unavailable the whole time and only exists to become pointlessly outraged for a ridiculous amount of time because Trace (surprise!) left him alone . . . to work on a school project . . . with TWO GIRLS OH GOD HOW COULD TRACE ABANDON HIM LIKE THAT? MAKE HIM SPEAK TO GIRLS LIKE THAT? Certainly an offense worthy of weeks of silence. I kept thinking any of this bizarre girl-themed behavior would be challenged, but no, never. No acknowledgement whatsoever that maybe girls aren't one giant homogenous entity and therefore maybe "I can't predict the exact behavior of every girl I see while barely even knowing them" isn't a big shocker.
And oh man. The consent. It is missing, my friends. Trace has a Moment with a neighbor girl he thinks is pretty, wonders if she's going in for a kiss, accidentally touches lips with her, and then decides to "act confident" and just kiss her for real "just in case" she did it on purpose. And then she just laughs and doesn't care! Even though she says she didn't want to kiss him and was just grabbing something nearby! Later there's a big concert at Trace's house and he gets called onstage to sing with an adult woman who flirts with him repeatedly (?????) kisses him on the cheek repeatedly (?!?!?!) and then kisses him ON THE MOUTH (!!!!!) in front of this living room crowd of adults who know Trace personally and everyone is just cool with it I guess? It's treated like Trace is into it because she's hot and famous and not like the gross predatory overreach that it actually is? I was so agog here I almost didn't finish. And then. And then! The neighbor girl shows up and kisses Trace on the mouth "just as friends" at this same party for . . . whatever? reasons? who the frick knows at this point? Why are so many people randomly kissing each other as a joke?
The concept of this book was so, so cool. Boy trying to heal from the traumatic loss of both parents navigates the rocky road to healing through actual ghost encounters with figures from his own ancient history. That sounds awesome, right? I so wish that most of the story had been about that instead of about Trace's strange personal dramas with characters that just didn't resonate with me. In the end he's just Over It even though he's suffered an earth-shattering loss, and okay, middle grade likes it's hopeful endings, but even the good parts of this book felt like they didn't quite hold together. Trace spent too much time acting detached from the ghost thing. I get it was a coping mechanism, but you can't have your main character go from "eh, I kinda just want to act like it never happened, I have bigger things to worry about" to "ghost plot is happily resolved!" so fast. Random adults got involved, they did half the work anyway, Trace just kinda floated through the story on its surface. I'd love to read a very different version of this idea; this version was a little too casually mean to its entire supporting cast.
Trace: "I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that I will NEVER UNDERSTAND GIRLS."
Seriously, I get that I have a sore spot around these kinds of remarks, but there were like 10-12 of them! It was constant! I was so confused--the story is trying to bring awareness to the suffering of young black children in the 1860s through a ghost story centered around a forgotten historical tragedy (brilliant idea and I was ready to love it) but then the sexism is just...relentless. The narrative makes fun of the teacher over and over for being fat and for I guess having a cold one day? Trace seems to have a crush on every unrelated female who enters the story except one girl who is repeatedly framed as "childish" because I guess she's kind of unusual and not taken seriously even though she's their peer. They do become friends, but it feels like Trace is always affectionately laughing at her inside, which I guess works if you're watching your three-year-old child do something weird at a family picnic like "I'm not sure why he does that flamingo dance but we love him the way he is!" but just comes across as condescending between same-aged peers.
Characters are stereotypes: mean girl classmate the protagonist inexplicably has a crush on who will eventually be won over by his coolness in some dramatic moment, "nerd" girl who literally speaks using lengthy thesaurus terms in every sentence, alleged best friend who is emotionally unavailable the whole time and only exists to become pointlessly outraged for a ridiculous amount of time because Trace (surprise!) left him alone . . . to work on a school project . . . with TWO GIRLS OH GOD HOW COULD TRACE ABANDON HIM LIKE THAT? MAKE HIM SPEAK TO GIRLS LIKE THAT? Certainly an offense worthy of weeks of silence. I kept thinking any of this bizarre girl-themed behavior would be challenged, but no, never. No acknowledgement whatsoever that maybe girls aren't one giant homogenous entity and therefore maybe "I can't predict the exact behavior of every girl I see while barely even knowing them" isn't a big shocker.
And oh man. The consent. It is missing, my friends. Trace has a Moment with a neighbor girl he thinks is pretty, wonders if she's going in for a kiss, accidentally touches lips with her, and then decides to "act confident" and just kiss her for real "just in case" she did it on purpose. And then she just laughs and doesn't care! Even though she says she didn't want to kiss him and was just grabbing something nearby! Later there's a big concert at Trace's house and he gets called onstage to sing with an adult woman who flirts with him repeatedly (?????) kisses him on the cheek repeatedly (?!?!?!) and then kisses him ON THE MOUTH (!!!!!) in front of this living room crowd of adults who know Trace personally and everyone is just cool with it I guess? It's treated like Trace is into it because she's hot and famous and not like the gross predatory overreach that it actually is? I was so agog here I almost didn't finish. And then. And then! The neighbor girl shows up and kisses Trace on the mouth "just as friends" at this same party for . . . whatever? reasons? who the frick knows at this point? Why are so many people randomly kissing each other as a joke?
The concept of this book was so, so cool. Boy trying to heal from the traumatic loss of both parents navigates the rocky road to healing through actual ghost encounters with figures from his own ancient history. That sounds awesome, right? I so wish that most of the story had been about that instead of about Trace's strange personal dramas with characters that just didn't resonate with me. In the end he's just Over It even though he's suffered an earth-shattering loss, and okay, middle grade likes it's hopeful endings, but even the good parts of this book felt like they didn't quite hold together. Trace spent too much time acting detached from the ghost thing. I get it was a coping mechanism, but you can't have your main character go from "eh, I kinda just want to act like it never happened, I have bigger things to worry about" to "ghost plot is happily resolved!" so fast. Random adults got involved, they did half the work anyway, Trace just kinda floated through the story on its surface. I'd love to read a very different version of this idea; this version was a little too casually mean to its entire supporting cast.