A review by yoursam
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

adventurous fast-paced

2.5

"It was," he said. "Kerri, all we do is try to cope."

^ the only quote that i liked enough to jot down

an unfortunate let down. the amount of potential here was off the charts but it simply didn't deliver, and cantero's writing style certainly didn't help. the introductory chapters at the start had a very "a man wrote this" vibe that was hard to ignore, but we can close an eye to that, sort of.

the real problem here is the actual writing - cantero goes for something fast and quirky that works out maybe a handful of times in the whole novel. the paragraph to "script-style" back to paragraph certainly tries to do something but falls flat constantly, because there's simply no need for it. particular dialogue tags are favored over a simple "said" often enough that you can't not notice ("polled" comes to mind, for example). but above all is the similes. it is a ever constant waterfall of it, every other sentence if not every sentence. let your story breathe, man! everything is like something else, usually something Quirky or edgy or whatever the fuck. here's one of my own, it felt like being in a car with a kid who has yet to figure out the clutch. don't even get me started on the hair thing, i wanted to kill myself.

i didn't hate this novel but unfortunately the amount of stuff that i didn't enjoy far surpasses the things i did (namely the concept, the potential, the characters more or less).

there are missed opportunities everywhere here, mostly with nate and especially with peter and his situation (when i realized what i thought would happen didn't i sighed loud enough my mom asked me what was up lmao). there's loose ends and dropped foreshadowing, which i suppose makes it.... not... foreshadowing lmao and that's the part that infuriates me the most. i hate a book that disappoints.

nail in the coffin is 1) the

vaguely transphobic villain-coding (or is it trans-coded villain?) oh you get what i mean

at least to me. 2) i'm not native american but the whole thing with copperseed being there for exposition AND even worse that ending?? something there rubbed me the wrong way and i don't have to spell out what it was because it should be obvious. also, 3) again this might not be my place but andy's character seems to lean a bit too much into the angry, aggressive latina stereotype, especially at the beginning.

solid bones, really interesting dynamics between the gang, amazing concept and even better set up for the starting point. this story could have been great, all it needed was for someone else to be holding the pen.

i promise i'm not a hater lmao

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Content Warnings

Minor: Mental illness and Suicide

I also personally think there's something off about how the gay aspect was handled here but I can't quite put my finger on it. Also, general "a man definitely wrote this vibes" (as mentioned in the review) but there's no content warning tag for that lmao

Not adding "transphobia" as a content warning because while that's how the reveal felt like to me, there's no actual trans character in the book. It's more of a feeling.