A review by jazzyjan94
Unlocked by Karen Kingsbury
2.0
This review appears on my blog: https://confessionsofabookwormweb.wordpress.com/2019/11/22/book-review-unlocked-by-karen-kingsbury/
Last time I read Unlocked, I was a junior in high school and absolutely loved Karen Kingsbury’s books and read most of the Baxter Family series. I decided to reread Unlocked because last year I decided to reread the Baxter Family books (up through Love Story) so that I could refresh myself on what had happened before I read the latest books about the Baxter Family. And in the Above the Line series, one of the books that makes an appearance is Unlocked, so I thought it would be good to reread it before I moved onto the Bailey Flannigan series. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve grown up in the last eight years or if there are certain topics that I think differently about now than I did back when I was in high school, but I honestly didn’t love this book as much as I did the first time I read it.
One of the first things that I did not like about this book is that is a seemingly anti-vaccinations undertone, going so far as assuming that the main character’s autism was due to vaccinations he received when he was three. I’m not hear to write a treatise about why vaccinations are important, but rather to say as someone who works with the public on a daily basis, I see the definite need for most vaccinations. Also, autism is a genetic condition, not some illness that can be caught, and it hasn’t really ever been proven academically that there is truly a connection between vaccinations and autism. However, I feel that to discuss this several times throughout the book as the “cause” of autism rubbed me the wrong way. Again, I’m not here to argue about the subject of vaccinations, but just that I didn’t like that that was an undertone that was in the book, especially for the first 100 pages.
Secondly, a lot of the characters are flat throughout the novel, and everything seems to be solved neatly in the end by the power of prayer. I’m not saying I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I do, but for everything to end perfectly like that is not an accurate depiction of how God answers prayer. Sometimes His answer is no for reason we may never understand.
I almost put this book down and decided to call it quits, but I’d already made it this far and also, I was curious to see if it got any better and to see if there was a reason why I loved it over eight years ago. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I ended up loving about it, except it was nice that there was a happy ending, but things seemed tied up to neatly. The novel deals with some hard issues like bullying and suicide, but in the end the bullies magically seem to turn over a new leaf, at least for one night. I felt that there was more that could have been done, but it just seemed very rushed to get to the end.
Overall, I can’t really remember why I thought this book was one of the best that had been written when I was a junior in high school. It was cheesy, attempts to deal with hard topics but doesn’t spend enough time on them, and then there was of course trying to subtly blame the main character’s autism on vaccinations that also bugged me. I would like to say that this hasn’t put me off Karen Kingsbury’s books for good, but this one was just disappointing because it also has a lot of potential too. 2/5 Stars.
Last time I read Unlocked, I was a junior in high school and absolutely loved Karen Kingsbury’s books and read most of the Baxter Family series. I decided to reread Unlocked because last year I decided to reread the Baxter Family books (up through Love Story) so that I could refresh myself on what had happened before I read the latest books about the Baxter Family. And in the Above the Line series, one of the books that makes an appearance is Unlocked, so I thought it would be good to reread it before I moved onto the Bailey Flannigan series. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve grown up in the last eight years or if there are certain topics that I think differently about now than I did back when I was in high school, but I honestly didn’t love this book as much as I did the first time I read it.
One of the first things that I did not like about this book is that is a seemingly anti-vaccinations undertone, going so far as assuming that the main character’s autism was due to vaccinations he received when he was three. I’m not hear to write a treatise about why vaccinations are important, but rather to say as someone who works with the public on a daily basis, I see the definite need for most vaccinations. Also, autism is a genetic condition, not some illness that can be caught, and it hasn’t really ever been proven academically that there is truly a connection between vaccinations and autism. However, I feel that to discuss this several times throughout the book as the “cause” of autism rubbed me the wrong way. Again, I’m not here to argue about the subject of vaccinations, but just that I didn’t like that that was an undertone that was in the book, especially for the first 100 pages.
Secondly, a lot of the characters are flat throughout the novel, and everything seems to be solved neatly in the end by the power of prayer. I’m not saying I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I do, but for everything to end perfectly like that is not an accurate depiction of how God answers prayer. Sometimes His answer is no for reason we may never understand.
I almost put this book down and decided to call it quits, but I’d already made it this far and also, I was curious to see if it got any better and to see if there was a reason why I loved it over eight years ago. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I ended up loving about it, except it was nice that there was a happy ending, but things seemed tied up to neatly. The novel deals with some hard issues like bullying and suicide, but in the end the bullies magically seem to turn over a new leaf, at least for one night. I felt that there was more that could have been done, but it just seemed very rushed to get to the end.
Overall, I can’t really remember why I thought this book was one of the best that had been written when I was a junior in high school. It was cheesy, attempts to deal with hard topics but doesn’t spend enough time on them, and then there was of course trying to subtly blame the main character’s autism on vaccinations that also bugged me. I would like to say that this hasn’t put me off Karen Kingsbury’s books for good, but this one was just disappointing because it also has a lot of potential too. 2/5 Stars.