Mystery and Adventure

 Too Bright to See

Lukoff, Kyle. Too Bright to See. 186p. Dial Books for Young Readers. Apr 2021. Tr $8.99. ISBN 9780593111178.

    Bug lives in an old haunted house and recently lost her live-in Uncle. Until the summer of the events of the book, the ghosts never really made their presence known. Since Uncle Rodrick’s death, Bug feels something has shifted with the spirits in the house. The conflict in this book is internal more than anything else. Bug feels 2 main things, that something is off with them, and that Uncle Rodrick had unfinished business to tend to. These feelings end up being connected and through figuring out what Uncle Rodrick is trying to communicate, Bug learns about why something feels so off. Though this book is relatively short, it was honestly pretty hard for me to get through. Not much happens. It is narrated exclusively through Bug’s POV, which is fine, but it ends up being a lot of thoughts and observations, and I did not find it particularly interesting. As Bug starts searching more seriously for the message Uncle Rodrick is communicating to them, the plot picks up a bit, but is largely still anti-climatic in the actual events of the story. Even in the climax, when Bug figures out what Uncle Rodrick is trying to say, and wakes up with a shaved head, the story is still mostly communicated through Bugs thoughts rather than action. They talk about having a big realization and how things feel so different now, but very little actually happened to get them there. 

As an adult, and knowing this book won a Stonewall Award, it didn’t take much for me to see where the story was going. Though, the chapter where Bug thinks that Uncle Rodrick was trans and continually refers to him as their dead uncle or aunt, was the most entertaining to me as a reader. It is hard for me to say how predictable this book would be for the intended reader since everyone approaches each book they read with their own life experience. My life experience is that of a queer 25 year old who reads a lot of queer fiction, which made the journey of this book feel predictable. If I were a younger or less familiar reader, I may not have the same feelings.

I think this book could be a helpful resource for kids who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community or allies. The way in which Bug figures out they are trans may feel familiar to other trans kids or could be a good place to start learning and understanding as an ally. 

Jennifer Chan is Not Alone

Keller, Tae. Jennifer Chan is Not Alone. 265p. Apr. 2022. Random House. Tr $8.99. ISBN 9780593310557.

    The tension created in this book could be attributed to a number of things, which is what keeps readers hooked. Are there REALLY aliens at play, was it the infamous and unexplained “Incident”, is it something else? Going into this read, I was skeptical, I was really not in the market for another alien book/kids save the world from aliens book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that wasn’t really what this book was about. The characters in this book demonstrate some of the most change and growth I’ve seen among all the books read this semester. This is especially evident in Mallory’s grappling with her values and decision making as she lives in the consequences of Jennifer’s disappearance. Once I realized this was not an alien story, but more of a “Dear Evan Hansen” or a “Chrissa Stands Tall”, that may or may not include aliens, I got so much more enjoyment from reading it. 

    While I do think the disclosure of “The Incident” could have come sooner in the story, especially considering the length of the book, I found the mystery of how real of a possibility the aliens were to be a really compelling component of the story. My library shelves this book in realistic fiction, but as a reader, I was totally with the main characters as they explored the possibility of alien intervention. I didn’t necessarily believe Jennifer was abducted, but I think looking for the connection between her obsession with them, and her struggles adjusting in her new community created a viable plotline for aliens to somehow be part of the puzzle. 

    This is a middle grade novel, I think more specifically, the target audience is probably middle school girls. When you strip back the aliens of it all, this is really a story about how people treat each other, and how we treat ourselves, played out through the dynamics of middle school through the eyes of a girl trying to hold onto her perceived social capital. There are lessons to be gleaned for any middle school aged reader, but the specifics of the social situations may not be universally identifiable in one's own experience.