A review by femmenova
Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll

adventurous emotional inspiring fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

BRILLIANT. Without revealing too much about the book, this was so brilliantly written. This is exactly the kind of book I would want my students, my younger self read and feel absolutely seen. I cannot speak for the representation of the characters as this is not an own voices review, but I find that the exploration of ableism and eugenics in digital AI is very thoroughly unpacked and digestible for a child to understand. It got me genuinely thinking about the way we immortalized people in our life after their passing. How much we sanitized people to shape them to be the way we want them to be to suit a narrative that is.. comfortable. 

I have so many other things to say about the book but I have yet to properly process it. All I know is that this book had me bawling my eyes out, snot in my mask on a public bus at 4 in the afternoon. I was clutching my chest to calm myself down. 

Among many favorite powerful lines in the book, "children are not extensions of their parents." Absolutely powerful and empowering to have that read if I was a child, let alone an adult with *tada* parental issues! I don't want to expose on a public site why this book hit me the way it hit, I'm just a neurodivergent person who saw a little of child me in this book and it healed a tiny part of me that grieved the times an adult has made me felt inadequate. 
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