disabled supporting characters

When Dimple Met Rishi – Sandhya Menon

9th July 20179th July 2017 by Polenth

Dimple Cover First Published: 1st June, 2017
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance / Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Dimple is heading to Insomnia Con, a summer course with a contest to design an app. What she doesn’t know is Rishi, the boy her parents have arranged for her to marry, will also be there.

I liked Dimple’s relationship with her family. There’s tension between her dream of a career in computing and their dream of her marrying a nice Indian man. Dimple faces not being seen as Indian enough by Indians due to growing up in the USA, or American enough by white Americans because she’s Indian. This is also contrasted by Rishi, who has a different approach to the conflicting cultural expectations.

Unfortunately, the edition I read had all Hindi words in italics. This included direct speech and words like salwar kameez. I’m not fond of this formatting choice at the best of times, because it serves to emphasise and other anything that isn’t in English. But in this case, it made the first section a nightmare to read, due to the volume of italics sprinkled throughout. This is a publisher choice rather than an author choice, but I’d hope they’d consider revoking italicising privileges for the book formatter when it comes to the next edition.

There are things I liked about the romance. Dimple and Rishi genuinely like each other and get along, rather than hating each other and only dating because they think the other is hot. The issues they’re navigating are mainly about figuring how things will fit with their lives.

However, there were some things I didn’t like. Dimple hits Rishi frequently. Not realising that playful punches are too hard is something I had issues with as a teen, so I could relate to that (though it wasn’t cute or funny, which is how the book portrays it). But when Dimple wanted to punch him because she was angry, that was something else. I don’t find it cute when someone wants to hit their partner to hurt them, whether they manage to pull back from striking them or not. There are also other instances of ignoring boundaries, such as pressuring Rishi into eating something he doesn’t want to eat. There’s some pushback when she invades Rishi’s privacy, but overall, it’s shown as a good thing to ignore people’s boundaries because it’s for their own good.

The romance also means everything else stops. The plot is gone, the family relationships move to the background, and Dimple’s friendship with Celia isn’t particularly explored. I’d hoped for more of a balance between the elements.

This wasn’t the book I expected when it came to the overall theme. Coding is Dimple’s passion, yet it’s minimised throughout the book. There’s a discussion about Dimple’s app idea, and after that, a few token references here and then. In contrast, Rishi’s passion for art does have development. He’s shown drawing and going to art events. The art aspects of the course are the ones that get the most time, such as the photography icebreaker and the talent show. It’s much more of a book about art than one about computer science, which wasn’t what I was hoping to read.

The lack of time spent on the app development had another issue due to Dimple’s idea. She wants to make a reminder app for people who have medication to take, which will work as a game with rewards. This is based on her dad finding it difficult to remember to take his medicine as a diabetic. She doesn’t discuss this with her dad, and no disabled people are involved at any point in the process, which means it’s based on what she’s assuming people need. Non-disabled people having control of resources for disabled people is an issue, so it doesn’t sit well here.

Being marginalised can mean facing microaggressions and bullying constantly, particularly in spaces dominated by more privileged people. The book tries to tackle this, but I have mixed feelings about how this turned out. Dimple is on high alert for signs of such behaviour, often assuming the worst before it happens. This is a realistic reaction to being in an unsafe space. But the narrative is arranged so that Dimple is never wrong. She never lashes out at someone based on an assumption that doesn’t turn out to be true. When she assumes a group of people are obnoxious based on their appearance, it turns out they’re really terrible. When she assumes someone is going to cause issues about her name, that person does indeed end up causing issues. I’d have liked to see some nuance here, in that assuming the worst and reacting aggressively will mean sometimes getting it wrong and having to smooth it over. I don’t count her initial reaction to Rishi here, as that was a case of reacting to behaviour that appeared threatening, rather than assuming he would do something like that in the future based on his clothing.

The strength in representation is that Dimple and Rishi are Indian and Hindu. The other areas are mainly on the side, as they’re supporting characters rather than the main characters. Dimple’s dad is diabetic and her auntie uses a wheelchair. Dimple’s friend Celia is bisexual and half Dominican. Celia does stray into some bisexual tropes, such as being the one with the active sex life and her relationships with boys being shown as much more serious (in other words, it’s just a phase for a girl to be interested in girls). I would also have liked to see other girls (including other Indian girls) who were at the convention to code. As it stands, it had a not-like-other-girls vibe, as the two other girls shown don’t appear to be heading into computing professions.

There was also the issue of small jarring references which could easily have been cut and kept the story exactly the same. For example, the evil rivals are compared to intersex people at one point as an insult, by stating they have micro penises. Also, Dimple criticises the use of “Aight” by saying no one she knows uses it unironically. There are things to be said about a rich white boy using AAVE to sound cool, but criticising him for not sufficiently making fun of AAVE is not one of those. And for my last example, the line where Dimple notes Rishi is “dressed pretty sanely for a psychotic attacker”, because obviously creepy people are all psychotic and insane. There were enough small things like this to bother me. I’d have liked it better if no marginalised group appeared only as a punchline or an insult.

This was a light read with a few funny moments. Though there were some things I didn’t like, I thought it was okay in general. I’m not really the audience for romances that only focus on the romance, so the lack of development of the contest plot and the non-romantic relationships were big downsides for me. This will appeal to fans of contemporary romance, but will likely be a disappointment for those interested in the STEM angle.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Wonder Woman (Film)

16th June 2017 by Polenth

Genre: Superhero / Film
Main Creative Team: Patty Jenkins (director); Allan Heinberg (screenplay); Zack Snyder (story, producer); Jason Fuchs (story); Charles Roven (producer); Deborah Snyder (producer); Richard Suckle (producer)
Main Cast: Gal Gadot; Chris Pine; Ewen Bremner; Saïd Taghmaoui; Eugene Brave Rock; Lucy Davis; Robin Wright; Connie Nielsen; Danny Huston; David Thewlis; Elena Anaya
First Shown: 15th May, 2017
Available: Cinemas

When a man arrives on the island with tales of a great war, Diana (Gal Gadot) believes it is caused by Ares and heads out to find him.

This film presents a much more innocent Diana. She’s grown up among the Amazons and only knows about the world outside from stories. She thinks stopping World War I will be as simple as killing Ares. Steve (Chris Pine), the man who landed on the island, knows the situation is a lot more complicated. He has information to get back to London about a new chemical weapon, which could threaten ongoing peace negotiations.

A lot of superhero films focus on heroes learning to harness their powers as the primary thing. Diana starts out ready trained. The focus is on her learning how to direct that training and work with others. This was a side of the plot I liked, as it gets away from having to believe someone goes from nothing to being able to save the world in a few days. There’s some subversion of the idea that defeating the big bad makes all the problems go away, but it doesn’t really commit to that completely. I thought it might be about to go there, and then it doesn’t, which is a shame. It’s possible to have dramatic finales and make it clear that life is a little more complicated.

Diana and Steve end up with a small team, with the purpose of infiltrating enemy lines. I generally enjoyed the team dynamics and how the representation was tackled. Starting with Diana herself, she’s played by a Jewish Israeli actress, which is a departure from previous Wonder Woman castings. This also meant other Amazons have similar accents to match, rather than having American accents.

Charlie (Ewen Bremner) is a Scottish sniper. It becomes clear that he has PTSD, which is treated sensitively by those around him. This is particularly poignant because mental health wasn’t an area where the military did well. It was poorly understood, and things like freezing in battle were likely to be attributed to cowardice, rather than trauma. So it’s important that Charlie’s trauma was accepted and understood by those around him.

Sameer (Saïd Taghmaoui) is French Moroccan. There’s a nod here to racism, as Sameer says he wanted to be an actor, but was the wrong colour. He does stray into some stereotypes, such as being lecherous. Though at times it’s also clear he’s playing up stereotypes knowingly. His name was shortened to Sammy, which was a slur against Indian people at the time, so that stood out a bit in a way I don’t think the creators realised.

Chief (Eugene Brave Rock) is Blackfoot and initially speaks to Diana in Blackfoot. He is dressed sensibly and speaks fluent English (which is a low bar, but one a lot of media doesn’t get over). He tells Diana about colonialism, making it clear it was Steve’s people who did that. The thing I didn’t like was a brief moment, but it still stood out. At one point, Chief needs to signal them, so he sets a fire for stereotypical smoke signals. They’re separated into little rings like it’s a cartoon, because a regular smoky fire just wouldn’t do, I suppose.

Last but not least, the team have a coordinator back in London: Etta Candy (Lucy Davis). She’s a great character, but I felt she was underused. When Diana first arrives in London, Etta is there to help out, and has some funny moments and some resourceful ones when she realises something isn’t quite right. She does her coordinator thing, passing on valuable information. But I really would have liked more in the later part of the story. Etta and Diana are shown together in the aftermath, but they don’t have a conversation, which was a missed opportunity to show their relationship developing. Also notable is that Etta is fat, as she is in the comics.

Though I liked most things about the main team, I had criticisms when it came to some of the other casting and presentation, including the crowd scenes. Modern warfare meant a lot of injuries like amputation and disfigurement. People were getting body parts blown off and mangled in ways that hadn’t really happened on that scale before. This meant there were suddenly a lot of newly disabled people. The film shows them when it’s convenient for the plot. Diana sees returning veterans with their injuries, which is part of her realising the full horror of this war. But it doesn’t show them where it would be realistic, which is every crowd scene in London. The people who returned disabled didn’t just vanish, so there would have been a much higher ratio of disabled people than there is in London today.

This also relates to the issue with Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya). She has facial disfigurement, which is covered with a prosthetic. There’s a history of using facial scars and disfigurement to mark someone as a villain. Covering injuries with masks or prosthetics is linked to hiding things, rather than showing them as improving the quality of life for the person wearing them. Nothing about Doctor Poison’s portrayal challenges those stereotypes, and there aren’t people with similar injuries in other roles. It’s especially noticeable to do this in a WWI setting, because there were so many people who had that sort of injury.

Outside of that issue, Doctor Poison really could have used more development. She had the potential to be an interesting villain, but she was overshadowed by General Ludendorff (Danny Huston). This was a bit of a reoccurring thing with women who weren’t Wonder Woman, as they didn’t get as much time and development as the men.

There are some non-white women with speaking roles among the Amazons, but they don’t have major parts, and weren’t a big component of the Amazon crowd scenes. The Amazons also tended towards slim athletic builds. I’d have liked more variety here. They recruited athletes and the like for these roles, but it’s clear there was a bias in which sort of athletes were approached. I did like that there was an age range, with Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) and Antiope (Robin Wright) being played by women in their 50s.

My criticisms don’t mean it was a bad film. It was a good superhero story and a vast improvement on DC’s previous attempts. There are good aspects of representation, starting with this being one of the minority of superhero films with a woman as the lead. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t areas that could use improvement. I’d hope some of these are considered for future films in this universe.

The Seafarer’s Kiss – Julia Ember

3rd April 201812th June 2017 by Polenth

Seafarer's Kiss Cover First Published: 4nd May, 2017
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy / Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Smashwords

Ersel dreams of life beyond the constrictive rules of her merfolk clan. Then she finds a human stranded on the ice.

This is a retelling of The Little Mermaid following the sea witch. It’s set in colder waters with a Norse mythology feel. It follows Ersel’s developing relationship with Ragna, the young woman she finds on the ice, and the deals Ersel makes with Loki to attempt to get what she wants.

One thing that bothers me in mermaid stories is when they’re written as though they take place on land. One moment someone is swimming, and the next they’re doing something that wouldn’t work underwater. This is one of those stories. The great hall is set out like a cafeteria with tables, benches and people carrying food on trays. A bowl is thrown at someone with force. People sit and lie down the way they would on land. I did consider the option of there being some air spaces, but the only one mentioned is in the great hall, and would be above the action. A spoofy story might get away with this, but it doesn’t work when there’s an attempt at realism.

A lot of animal references are thrown in to make it sound more underwatery. This came across as superficial, rather than the way someone who lived in the water would speak. They were mainly restricted to commonly known species, rather than showing a knowledge that goes beyond what the average land person would know. Some of them also didn’t really fit the setting. For example, the simile “as fast as a zebra fish”. Zebra fish usually refers to zebra danios, which are indeed known for fast speed and darting movements. Zebra danios are tropical freshwater fish. The most likely saltwater fish are lionfish, known for their fancy fins and being venomous. These are also tropical fish. Neither really fits well into an arctic setting, and the fast-moving one is a fish merfolk wouldn’t have seen.

Merfolk culture is a restrictive patriarchy with binary gender roles. Young mermaids are rated on their fertility and considered broken if they’re infertile. The mermaids lay eggs, but the social and biological implications of that aren’t really considered. This is another time when things felt more like they took place on land, as the eggs are incubated more like bird eggs, rather than fish eggs. One of the big issues underwater is eggs rotting, so there are different considerations for fish nests.

Ersel is bisexual, which is one thing that isn’t seen as a problem in merfolk society. I wouldn’t say the relationships shown are particularly healthy. Havamal is controlling, which is addressed. Ragna and Ersel end up attacking each other. The abusive dynamic of this isn’t really addressed. It also felt like Ragna and Ersel’s relationship was mainly physical. They don’t really talk that much nor have time to form an emotional bond. It’s more about how hot it is to kiss and have sex.

Loki is genderfluid. This fits how they’re shown in mythology, but the way this is handled is not good. Loki is not the average trickster type, who can help and hinder, and is rather morally grey. Loki is evil all the way down. They’re known as the god of lies to the merfolk and everything they do is intended to be as cruel as possible. They’re the only genderfluid character in a story filled with strict binaries, and they’re the villain attempting to harm all the binary gender folk. I also disliked the strong focus on trying to gender their body anytime they appeared. Ersel sees women as having soft curves and men as having rippling muscles, so Loki’s gender is constantly being judged by those standards. This behaviour does also suggest a person isn’t really non-binary if they don’t have a body deemed to look non-binary (or the ability to shapeshift between bodies).

The story is mixed when it comes to body positivity. Ersel is fat and that’s shown as a good thing as it keeps her warm. Fat shaming isn’t a thing in merfolk society. But when she’s a human, she suddenly has slender legs. What goes for a mermaid’s body doesn’t seem to apply for a human. There’s acceptance both of Ersel’s body changes during the story, and a character who has an amputation, but the king is said to be getting ugly on the outside to match his cruel inside. So the narrative doesn’t get away from shaming bodies when someone isn’t liked.

There are a number of mute characters, though most aren’t really explored in depth. Loki is the main one, who steals voices to replace their own. Unlike the gender issues, there are other mute characters (the people who have voices taken by Loki and one other). That means it doesn’t come across as saying all mute people want to steal voices. However, I’d still have liked more depth on some of them. One in particular only appears when convenient to the plot and could have been introduced earlier.

Outside of my worldbuilding and character issues, there were parts of the story I liked. Once it got going, with Ersel trying to beat Loki at their own games, it got a lot more interesting. It wasn’t enough to overcome the other issues for me, but it did improve a lot in the second half. It was good that Ersel’s not-like-other-girls thing is eventually addressed. She’s not actually the only one who feels restricted by the society, so she’s a lot more like other girls than she realises.

I’m tougher than most on underwater books getting being underwater right, but even without that, there were issues. The portrayal of genderfluid people as liars and the abusive relationship dynamics were not good. The setting idea was potentially interesting, and nothing stood out as a major problem with the bisexual representation, but that wasn’t enough to carry it for me. Note there are off-screen rapes and pregnancy body horror, among other darker themes.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

Noteworthy – Riley Redgate

20th June 20176th June 2017 by Polenth

Noteworthy Cover First Published: 2nd May, 2017
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary / Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Jordan Sun has failed to get any parts in school musicals because of her deep voice. When she sees an advert for all-male a cappella group the Sharpshooters, she disguises herself as a boy and auditions as a tenor.

I’m generally not a big fan of books where someone pretends to be a different gender. It’s not uncommon for such books to use trans themes in ways that are comfortable for cis readers, but not so great for trans readers. Which might raise the question of why I wanted to read this one. The answer is Jordan’s deep voice. I wondered if she might be intersex, and therefore, if the book might tackles issues of binary sex. I was also interested because the musical world is very strict on the idea of sex binaries when it comes to voices, so it seemed like a good setting for such a story. The book didn’t really do what I was hoping, but those were my thoughts behind why I wanted to read it.

The plot revolves around training for an a cappella competition, with the hopes of winning a place on a tour. I wouldn’t say it’s the primary focus though, as it has more of a character focus with Jordan getting to know the other members of the group. It’s generally paced well, noting that it is the sort of story with a slow pace. Where it falls down is the pacing after the competition. It feels as though the book was intended to be longer, but ended up with just a few scenes trying to cover everything.

The two characters with the most development are Nihal and Isaac. Jordan becomes close friends with both. Nihal is a kind person who has a few similarities to Jordan, such as studying outside of the music school. He’s a Sikh, Indian American, and gay. Isaac says things without thinking regardless of who it hurts, which I was supposed to find funny and endearing, but just found obnoxious. He’s Japanese American. In both cases, Jordan discovers things about their lives and families. She describes what they look like clearly. I left feeling I had a good grasp of these characters.

Erik, Jon, Theodore (nicknamed Mama) and Marcus had a defining character trait but not a lot else. Erik’s main feature is he’s short and looks very young, whilst having a deep bass voice. Jon is very rich and turns out to be dyslexic, which is mainly noticed because he was held back a few years when he was younger. Jordan notes he’s a slow reader, but it’s not portrayed as meaning he can’t read, which makes a change. Theodore is initially introduced as carrying wet wipes around and liking clean surfaces, but he didn’t get enough development to judge if that connected to any non-neurotypicality or not. He’s fat and the book mainly avoids shaming him for that, outside of someone outside the group being nasty. Marcus likes political stuff and I have no real image of what he looks like. In general, characters in this category were light on description, so I ended up trying to piece it together from odd comments. I’m unsure about things like race.

Trav is the musical director of the group and sits somewhere between the two in terms of development. Jordan doesn’t get to know him that well, but I did remember him as a distinct character, whereas I was forever getting the vague characters mixed up. Trav has anxiety. He’s described as having dark skin at one point. That’s often used as a way to say a character is black without saying they’re black, which I think may be the case here.

It’s odd how the book has some characters who are described very clearly and some who are so very vague. Isaac and Nihal get described repeatedly, but I was left searching through for descriptions of the others. I may have missed something, as the references were spread out and infrequent.

I did like that the characters aren’t perfect and there’s pushback to imperfect things they say. For example, when one has this thing about women loving alpha men, it isn’t just Jordan who thinks that’s nonsense. Theodore is given a nickname he hates, which Jordan takes for granted, until realising Nihal won’t use the nickname because he was asked not to use it. However, something that didn’t get any pushback was using moron, which sticks out particularly when there’s a dyslexic character who has a reasonably chance of having been on the receiving end of slurs like that.

The strongest area for me was the class representation. Jordan is from a poor family, who were made poorer after her dad was in an accident. It talks about some of the issues with being poor, such as benefit schemes not allowing people to save money, thus ensuring they stay poor. There’s the intersection of her family being Chinese immigrants and the system being designed to make sure they never entirely manage to get things together. She also feels out of place in a wealthy school environment where most people come from middle to upper class backgrounds. It’s something I can relate to, as going to university was a big struggle for me, because no one else in the family had ever done it. Things people took for granted about university culture were very alien to me.

Jordan is clear that she’s cisgender from the start. She does question her gender and presentation, though decides she’s a cis girl. Questioning gender isn’t something restricted to trans people, so I liked the general idea of this. Though I’d note it’s not necessary to do the whole girl-disguised-as-a-boy thing to do so.

There is an attempt to address potential appropriation of trans experiences in the text, but the way it’s handled didn’t work for me. Jordan considers how trans people might feel about what she’s doing, and whether there might be unintended consequences for trans people if she is found out. It could mean increased attempts to police people’s gender, for example. That passage showed some thought about it, but the trans people she mentions as knowing (one trans girl and one genderqueer person) are minor references. Acknowledging that something might be erasing or appropriating trans experiences does fall rather flat in a story that doesn’t have prominent trans characters. Acknowledging it is really only the start. It also felt that outside of that genderqueer reference, gender was mainly handled as a binary. Jordan has her real girl self and her fake boy self, with nothing between, so the mention of a non-binary person is a blink-and-miss-it moment.

I’d note this binary gender vibe also got into the book presentation. The pre-release version I was given had male and female symbols on the cover. These were mixed with notes that came out of two different singing mouths. I wasn’t fond of the use of the binary symbols, but they were in all different colours, which suggested a spectrum. They were also mixed together, as each mouth had both symbols. The official release cover turned all the male symbols blue and the female symbols pink. It made one mouth have all the male symbols and one all the female. It also added extra copies of these symbols to the chapter headings. It’s like between pre-release and final release, someone decided to up the binary to the max. Authors with large publishers don’t control their cover or book design, but it doesn’t stop these decisions potentially impacting people who pick up the book. It also makes it very clear how the publisher views the story.

Jordan is bisexual and had a long-term relationship that fell apart. I liked that it challenges the idea of a first partner being the one forever and touches on the problems of getting too focused on a romantic relationship. Her whole world revolved around her ex-partner, which meant when things fell apart, she didn’t have any close friends and was left struggling alone. It was a more realistic portrayal of love than the idea that everyone meets their one true love as a teenager and friends are no longer required.

The new potential love interests weren’t so great. They changed their level of interest depending on whether they thought she was a boy or not. In other words, the most important thing wasn’t who she was as a person, but what they assumed about her body. I didn’t relate to any of this. I’m sure this does match some people’s experiences, but I just found it a bit freaky that someone would stop/start loving you because you’re not the gender or sex they assumed. I couldn’t really get behind a relationship that formed on that basis.

I wasn’t fond of the way gay characters were handled, because it does veer into the unhappy gay thing. Given the references to how many queer people the school was supposed to have, I’m sure one of them could have had a happy ending.

On to what I was hoping to find, Jordan does have traits that could mean she’s intersex. Her voice is deep enough that she puts on a higher voice at school, she’s tall (and taller than other women in her family), has a small breast size, has facial features like her father, and started puberty early, which all together can be pointers to being intersex. But this isn’t discussed. Not even at a level of considering that she doesn’t fit in the sex binary very well or that such a binary exists.

The book does touch briefly on musical attitudes to vocalists, but this isn’t taken all the way. It’s not acknowledged that she wouldn’t have felt the need to do something like that if she’d been recognised as a tenor in the first place. Rather than simply not casting her in anything, her teachers could have suggested she auditioned for the male roles. The focus is strongly on judging Jordan’s reaction to the system, rather than the system. Even when someone makes a positive judgement, it’s still missing why she ended up in that position. She still gets reclassified to a contralto, because women are contraltos and men are tenors. Which makes no sense as a position as she had been singing as a tenor with no one considering she was anything else for months, so it can’t be argued she had a different tonal quality to a tenor. But even Jordan doesn’t comment against this.

This book is a tricky one when it comes to recommending it or not, as it does some things well, and others not so well. The cast is diverse, including multiply marginalised characters, but there are odd holes. Like having a character who appears to tick off all the boxes for being intersex, but never mentioning it. Or mentioning a trans girl and a genderqueer person when there are themes about gender identity, but not actually having those characters appear. Or being vague about the black character being black when the Asian characters have their races clearly stated. It’s one of the better books I’ve read dealing with the trope of a girl disguising herself as a boy, but I didn’t feel it really rose above the common issues of that trope.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]

The Gauntlet – Karuna Riazi

17th March 2017 by Polenth

Gauntlet Cover First Published: 28th March, 2017
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy / Novel
Available: Amazon.com | Amazon UK

Farah and her friends get caught in a magical game. They’ll have to win challenges if they want to escape.

Farah is a quiet and analytical sort of person, who comes from a family that play a lot of games. I liked that she is Bangladeshi and a practising Muslim, who wears a hijab. This is treated in a positive way. Her friends have known her for a long time, so there’s no hostility or questioning from them (there’s some from the children from Farah’s new school, but this isn’t shown in detail).

Some of the side characters are fun, such as the giant lizard, but I wasn’t really feeling Farah’s two friends. Part of the issue was the time limit on everything they did, so there wasn’t the sort of downtime where they could talk to each other. There’s an added distance because Farah hasn’t seen them for some time and doesn’t know what to say.

When it comes to the gameplay aspect of the story, the book delivers on its promise. The game world is an elaborate clockwork construction with multiple layers. The children have to play games, solve puzzles, and all the while keep an eye on the bigger stakes. Due to them looking for Farah’s younger brother, Ahmad, there’s time for exploration of some of the world’s secrets. It’s very imaginative with a steampunk vibe. Though again, there were points where things rushed by rather quickly, as the characters weren’t in some areas long enough to really get a feel for them.

My biggest issue was with Ahmad. He’s a seven-year-old with ADHD. Before ADHD is mentioned, I thought he must be dying, because the family avoids upsetting him and doesn’t set any boundaries for him. Farah is expected to go along with anything Ahmad wants. She has to play with him instead of her friends and she has to let him win every game. Ahmad has to have presents on anyone’s birthday, though still demands to open and own Farah’s presents. When she stands up to him, she knows she’ll get in trouble if he throws a tantrum, as though it’s unreasonable for Farah to want things for herself. This is blamed on ADHD, when it’s really about how the family react to Ahmad. Added to this, Ahmad’s mind is described as maze-like, as though he’s an unfathomable puzzle to be solved. I wondered if all this might be addressed later in the book, but it isn’t.

I was down with the steampunk game, the people that lived inside it, and the overall puzzle-solving plot. I liked Farah as a main character. However, Ahmad’s treatment made me uncomfortable. It also felt like the pace moved a bit too quickly in places.

[A copy of this book was received from the publisher for review purposes]