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A review by hannahsophialin
Supervision by Alison Stine
3.0
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Supervision was an interesting read – a very interesting read, and I'm not entirely too sure how I feel about this particular novel. The book definitely promotes diversity – the main character is apparently an Asian American character that doesn't actually follow the typical Asian stereotype (about time!).
In fact, this particular Asian American (her name is Esme) sometimes got to the point of making another Asian American (moi) wonder if she was just plain dumb. Not to be racist (not that I CAN be racist with my own race), but a chick who was smart enough to go to a private school in New York City with a scholarship has got to have come across the word "malicious" sometime throughout her scholarly career. Either that, or Esme was just extremely mind blown after being told she's dead, her brain cells stopped working for a second.
But that doesn't mean I'm saying I want an Asian sprouting textbook language.
There were, however, at times where too much was going on – my mind was running around and backtracking, rereading certain points of the book to attempt to get a better understanding and making connections from point A to point B. We have Esme sort of having a normal life in New York before some sort of subway tunnel scene that results in a flash of white light, which made me wonder if Esme is actually dead or dreaming. It finally results in Esme getting sent straight to a small town that is far from the spectrum of New York with her eccentric grandmother.
In all honesty, that particular scene that seems to be the ultimatum of sending Esme to Wellstone wasn't entirely confusing at first. But then we have a cast of ghosts that try to figure out why Esme can see, hear, and touch ghosts yet still experiences what the living experiences: two say Esme is dead, another says Esme isn't living or dead – she's in between. And between all of that, Esme tries to let her grandmother know she's okay (with fail), figure out why the Stationmaster is interested in her, uncovering the ghosts' pasts, and why at least one kid goes missing from Wellstone every year.
Half the time I feel as though Stine tries to build Wellstone in a supernatural way – it's obvious she seems to do a pretty good job in making the supernatural side of the town be as supernatural as possible. However, the other half of the time I feel as though Supervision would be a lot better explained if it were a movie with all the visual effects that Stine tries to apply at some points in the book.
In the long run though, Supervision was enjoyable and fun to read. While the concept was interesting, the book's movie version (should there ever be one) would probably be a lot more exciting and clearer than the book version.
This review was originally posted on Bookwyrming Thoughts
Supervision was an interesting read – a very interesting read, and I'm not entirely too sure how I feel about this particular novel. The book definitely promotes diversity – the main character is apparently an Asian American character that doesn't actually follow the typical Asian stereotype (about time!).
In fact, this particular Asian American (her name is Esme) sometimes got to the point of making another Asian American (moi) wonder if she was just plain dumb. Not to be racist (not that I CAN be racist with my own race), but a chick who was smart enough to go to a private school in New York City with a scholarship has got to have come across the word "malicious" sometime throughout her scholarly career. Either that, or Esme was just extremely mind blown after being told she's dead, her brain cells stopped working for a second.
But that doesn't mean I'm saying I want an Asian sprouting textbook language.
There were, however, at times where too much was going on – my mind was running around and backtracking, rereading certain points of the book to attempt to get a better understanding and making connections from point A to point B. We have Esme sort of having a normal life in New York before some sort of subway tunnel scene that results in a flash of white light, which made me wonder if Esme is actually dead or dreaming. It finally results in Esme getting sent straight to a small town that is far from the spectrum of New York with her eccentric grandmother.
In all honesty, that particular scene that seems to be the ultimatum of sending Esme to Wellstone wasn't entirely confusing at first. But then we have a cast of ghosts that try to figure out why Esme can see, hear, and touch ghosts yet still experiences what the living experiences: two say Esme is dead, another says Esme isn't living or dead – she's in between. And between all of that, Esme tries to let her grandmother know she's okay (with fail), figure out why the Stationmaster is interested in her, uncovering the ghosts' pasts, and why at least one kid goes missing from Wellstone every year.
Half the time I feel as though Stine tries to build Wellstone in a supernatural way – it's obvious she seems to do a pretty good job in making the supernatural side of the town be as supernatural as possible. However, the other half of the time I feel as though Supervision would be a lot better explained if it were a movie with all the visual effects that Stine tries to apply at some points in the book.
In the long run though, Supervision was enjoyable and fun to read. While the concept was interesting, the book's movie version (should there ever be one) would probably be a lot more exciting and clearer than the book version.
This review was originally posted on Bookwyrming Thoughts