Tom Avery

Representation: Black and Asian characters
Trigger warnings: Physical assault and injury, blood depiction, disappearance of a parent, hostage situation
Score: Five points out of ten.
Note that I got this book and now I own it.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm disappointed. The author wrote a book about Black people even though he's not Black. I've seen too many novels where the author doesn't match up with the characters and that frustrates me (even more so considering the preceding one won a Diverse Voices Award. Really?) I picked this one since it was part of a library giveaway and afterwards, I finally read it. When I finished the story, it was only okay and could've been better, considering a Black author would do a better job on this concept. In Too Deep is inaccurate at best, and blackface and cultural appropriation at worst.

It starts with two characters, Prince and Emmanuel, whose last names I don't know, living in England until they discover their mother tried to search for them for four years. The plot thickens when Prince and Em also receive information that their father is held hostage in Tanzania so they strategise to rescue and return him to England. Did I mention this narrative is non-linear? It jumps around in terms of time sometimes. Here's where the flaws surface: the characters missed the mark as in other pieces of literature like this. Is it me or some authors can't make me relate or connect to their characters. I can't judge how accurate the descriptions of places in Africa are but considering my statement about the author, I don't think it's reliable.

Prince and Em resort to stealing to achieve their goal but that decision made me question their morality and made me ask: have they done this before? I haven't read the first instalment, Too Much Trouble, and no library I know of has that title, so I'll never know. To conclude, Prince and Em reunite with their parents, finishing everything on a high note.… (más)

Trigger warnings: Death of a child, grief and loss depiction

Might be a very sad book...
Update: 7/10, this was a rather interesting book but it left me wanting to say one thing, "Why?" In the beginning there were two twin brothers, Jamie and Ned but Ned had cystic fibrosis, some people with that condition go on to live long lives but some do not so I could see where this was going. I didn't realise this was set in the 1980s until the book told me some events that happened, the pop culture, and the people, the twin brothers even had to be homeschooled because Ned's condition was too much to handle for his family so their lives were very different to the lives of people who go to school. The brothers' grandfather told them some interesting stories about pirates and merpeople and it was a juxtaposition that the grandfather was a captain who lived on the sea whereas the father was a quarryman who lived on dry land.

They discover some sort of creature whom they named Leonard but they had to let go eventually but Ned was not ready to part with him yet so he tried to dive off the cliff into the ocean to find him again but a person called Officer Taylor saved him. Later on Ned was in the hospital and then he left a note and went off when no one was watching and he was never found and presumed dead which was very saddening and even a funeral was held for him but eventually Jamie learns to let go. I've read a lot of books about grief and this one was quite sad but I couldn't really connect to the characters due to the basic writing style perhaps. If you like a sad story which is also an urban fantasy this is the book for you, it's such a shame that this book is this obscure, more people should read this book.… (más)

Quite simply, a stunning book of a young girl alone, as her mother cannot help Kaia as alons, she grieves the loss of her brother.

She found him, now she must find the way out of the powerful hold of grief. Previously, a honor student, now she slips rapidly into sadness that cannot allow her to find a way back.

A boy appears outside the school window. When he arrives inside, he jumps on the desks, howls like a wild animal and refuses to behave. He sticks by Kaia, never saying words, simply sitting by her.

The mother who cannot stop drinking her way through the sadness cannot help her, but this wild boy seems to take her mind off the tragic loss.

This is a wonderful tale of loss and grief and trying as best as possible to climb out of the deep well of sadness.

Excellent.

Five Stars!… (más)

Eleven-year-old Kaia is frozen in time, a horrendous, unimaginable time; the day she found her brother Moses in his bloody bed, dead. Her mother, who has lost her job, numbs herself with booze, Kaia with not talking, withdrawing from everyone at school where she’s known as "the freak", not even daring to read any books at a higher reading level than when her brother was alive. In their frozen states, Kaia and her mother do not talk about that life-changing day a year ago. Suddenly a silent, wild boy in tattered clothes appears at school and becomes Kaia’s constant companion. With spare, simple text, this hope-filled novel, written for tweens, easily draws us in and portrays the difficult, complex process of grieving.

Sharyn H. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

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