Shadows

by Robin McKinley

[nannah]

Oh, boy. DNF @ 13%.
I hate not finishing books, especially when I’ve barely scratched the surface, but this one was just … so, so bad.

So far, in what I read, Maggie is an incredibly judgmental person who takes a huge disliking to her new stepfather, Val, and the strange, moving and wiggling shadows he carries around with him. She and her family live in Newworld, a world built on science that seems to have … done away with all magic from the Oldworld. I’m sure the book would expand on that (so far it involves a ton of eugenics that made me squirm), but I didn’t get that far.

Doesn’t sound that bad, right? But here’s what made me stop: the entire prose is littered with Japanese words. Maggie’s not Japanese … and the author, Robin McKinley is white. It’s not every once in a while, either, it’s “getting a D on your algebra homework for the second time and seeing the akuma of summer school looming at you. / Bugsuck. Iya. Iya na creepo.”

Supposedly the reason why there’s Japanese words throughout the entire book (I flipped through it; it’s there. It’s there till the end) is because Maggie and her best friend decided to make fun of their half-Japanese friend by appropriating words in Japanese. And now they just use Japanese words and phrases in their speech and thoughts. All the time. Someone please explain to me why he’s still friends with them?

I just … could not bear reading a whole novel about a (white? probably?) girl saying ”Baka” every couple pages. I just couldn’t.

Plus this girl keeps judging her stepdad for being an immigrant, and multiple times wishes he would just be “deported back to Orzi-whatsit” (a fictional country in the “Slavic Commonwealth”). She makes fun of his accent too, which is also a plus (/s).

I just couldn’t stand the voice, which is pretty much the heart of a novel. So I had to pass.