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bennysbooks's reviews
661 reviews
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
3 stars from me, 1 mill stars from my (nearly) 7-year old
The kid was totally enchanted by this book. His eyes filled with tears when he realized we had finished (there are pages of questions/previews at the end, so he thought we had more time), and he went to sleep with it beside his bed. He felt the magic of this story, that's certain.
I, in my hopelessly adult way, had qualms. There was a lot to love here: it was very fairytale-esque, dark and dramatic, with sweeping emotional pronouncements about light and dark, about the power of stories, about forgiveness. I know I would have loved it as a kid, too. But so much of it felt uncomfortably conservative to me. I don't know a lot about the author's life, but if I had to guess I would bet she holds some old-school religious values about good and evil. Not that everyone "bad" was irredeemably evil (Roscuro and Mig achieve some level of redemption by the end), but that the characters who were inherently good, incorruptible, were also inherently beautiful (Pea) or cute (Despereaux). And the ugly (Roscuro) or dumb (Mig) or poor (Mig's father) characters were easily corruptible and needed to be "saved" by the light of the beautiful ones.
There is a reading of Roscuro's arc where he had the propensity for good in him at the outset, but it was squashed by the way people (Pea) reacted to his ugliness. Even so, the text doesn't challenge the belief that you can ascertain someone's goodness from their appearance or station, it merely maintains that forgiveness is the only way to preserve your own light, and that your light may ease some of the darkness in others. So, in the end, that generous reading of Roscuro is nullified because his heart was "hardened" at the first real challenge to his pursuit of light and his own self-perception. He was destined to be evil after all.
I was particularly horrified by the treatment of Miggery Sow - the name(!), the way the author heaped trauma onto her, the fact that she was described as ugly (I can't remember if that word was actually used, but the descriptions, coupled with the artwork, conveyed enough), fat, and dumb. Characters like Mig are fine to include in your story, but the portrayal was abject and pitiable rather than compassionate. Though she was shown compassion in the end, it was meant to show the goodness of Pea, not the inherent worth of Miggery Sow. I think Mig deserved more. It had me reflecting on the portrayal of Thick in Hobbs' RotE; Thick is written as being a "half-wit", and has a similarly tragic backstory, a similar moment of corruptibility, but is written with love and agency so that he comes to feel like a real, valuable member of the cast of characters (rather than merely a tool depicting trauma or a foil for goodness, which is what Mig felt like by the end).
Anyway, I honestly don't know how to feel about this book now that we're done. I'm ecstatic that my kid is becoming an obsessive bookworm, and I'm not at all opposed to kids reading dark plots or encountering imperfect representation (especially when it leads to thoughtful discussion, which it did here - when I shared with him my feelings about Mig, he said he believed that she just wasn't on her "right path" yet, and we had a good little chat about what that meant). But I'm definitely curious to learn more about DiCamillo's worldview as we read through her works.
The kid was totally enchanted by this book. His eyes filled with tears when he realized we had finished (there are pages of questions/previews at the end, so he thought we had more time), and he went to sleep with it beside his bed. He felt the magic of this story, that's certain.
I, in my hopelessly adult way, had qualms. There was a lot to love here: it was very fairytale-esque, dark and dramatic, with sweeping emotional pronouncements about light and dark, about the power of stories, about forgiveness. I know I would have loved it as a kid, too. But so much of it felt uncomfortably conservative to me. I don't know a lot about the author's life, but if I had to guess I would bet she holds some old-school religious values about good and evil. Not that everyone "bad" was irredeemably evil (Roscuro and Mig achieve some level of redemption by the end), but that the characters who were inherently good, incorruptible, were also inherently beautiful (Pea) or cute (Despereaux). And the ugly (Roscuro) or dumb (Mig) or poor (Mig's father) characters were easily corruptible and needed to be "saved" by the light of the beautiful ones.
There is a reading of Roscuro's arc where he had the propensity for good in him at the outset, but it was squashed by the way people (Pea) reacted to his ugliness. Even so, the text doesn't challenge the belief that you can ascertain someone's goodness from their appearance or station, it merely maintains that forgiveness is the only way to preserve your own light, and that your light may ease some of the darkness in others. So, in the end, that generous reading of Roscuro is nullified because his heart was "hardened" at the first real challenge to his pursuit of light and his own self-perception. He was destined to be evil after all.
I was particularly horrified by the treatment of Miggery Sow - the name(!), the way the author heaped trauma onto her, the fact that she was described as ugly (I can't remember if that word was actually used, but the descriptions, coupled with the artwork, conveyed enough), fat, and dumb. Characters like Mig are fine to include in your story, but the portrayal was abject and pitiable rather than compassionate. Though she was shown compassion in the end, it was meant to show the goodness of Pea, not the inherent worth of Miggery Sow. I think Mig deserved more. It had me reflecting on the portrayal of Thick in Hobbs' RotE; Thick is written as being a "half-wit", and has a similarly tragic backstory, a similar moment of corruptibility, but is written with love and agency so that he comes to feel like a real, valuable member of the cast of characters (rather than merely a tool depicting trauma or a foil for goodness, which is what Mig felt like by the end).
Anyway, I honestly don't know how to feel about this book now that we're done. I'm ecstatic that my kid is becoming an obsessive bookworm, and I'm not at all opposed to kids reading dark plots or encountering imperfect representation (especially when it leads to thoughtful discussion, which it did here - when I shared with him my feelings about Mig, he said he believed that she just wasn't on her "right path" yet, and we had a good little chat about what that meant). But I'm definitely curious to learn more about DiCamillo's worldview as we read through her works.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Violence, and Death of parent
Minor: Fatphobia, Grief, and Classism
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
4.0
Fascinating and hard to read in equal measure. I wanted to read this less as a true crime account (I skimmed the murder bits; what happened to Brenda and Erica is worth knowing, but I didn't feel like I needed details), but for an insight into the way religious fundamentalism tilts toward violence. As such, I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the focus was on Mormon history, and I've added many of the books Krakauer referenced to my tbr list. It was interesting to read in light of some of the recent abuses related to LDS/FLDS groups (the Daybells, Franke, etc) but also as someone paying acute attention to the rise in Christofascism, esp. in the US. And what a day to have finished the book...
"It's amazing how gullible people are," DeLoy continues. "But you have to remember what a huge comfort religion is. It provides all the answers. It makes life simple...and that's a real big part of what holds this religion together: it's not having to make those critical decisions that many of us have to make, and be responsible for your decisions."
Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. by Arundhati Roy
Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 0%.
Temporary DNF - I think I'd like to return after reading her novels (which I've been meaning to do anyway). The first essay was riveting, but I felt like I would be getting more from it having read the works Roy discusses.
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
If you're just looking for a basic read to give you the spooky vibes and atmosphere of the season, or you're more of a plot reader than a character-driven reader, this might work fine for you.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
I wrote a long review for this, and then my child closed all my apps when I got up to get them a water... so here are my basic thoughts instead:
- Characters bland (I couldn't tell you anything about Veris except a list of what happened to her on page)
- World does not feel real (and not in a cool magical/fairytale way, but as in I can't picture it in my mind beyond the events of the book)
- The writing felt a little utilitarian, like reading an article or maybe a blog post. Wasn't bad per se, it just didn't pull me in.
- The pacing was whiplashy - it's possible some of the above issues could have been resolved if we ever had a time to sit with characters/moments. It needed to be either shorter (and more fairytale like) or longer (and more developed) than it was
- As a result of all of the above, I couldn't get invested in the kind of basic plot of there's something spooky in the forest, save the children
If you're just looking for a basic read to give you the spooky vibes and atmosphere of the season, or you're more of a plot reader than a character-driven reader, this might work fine for you.
Lady Susan by Jane Austen
...she means her daughter, her in-laws, her recently deceased husband, the wife of the man she was stringing along. Lady Susan would be the kind of person to share pithy wellness lines, completely divorced from context, to encourage her own bad behaviour. Austen had these women pegged before they could tell on themselves online.
3.5
Delightfully horrid.
"I am tired of submitting my will to the Caprices of others - of resigning my own Judgement in deference to those, to whom I owe no Duty, and for whom I feel no respect..."
...she means her daughter, her in-laws, her recently deceased husband, the wife of the man she was stringing along. Lady Susan would be the kind of person to share pithy wellness lines, completely divorced from context, to encourage her own bad behaviour. Austen had these women pegged before they could tell on themselves online.