[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Antheneum in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary and Review
Mrs. Herrera’s class of 6th graders is an eclectic group of students. She has popular kids, and jocks and nice kids and brainy kids. Ellie is one of the new kids. She’s a writer – an observer – a spy. And when something happens in the class, her observations are a foundation for the rest of the story.
This is an unusual book. There are a ton of perspectives in this. Twenty different kids chime in to tell the story. It was hard at times to keep track of everyone. Then it took half the book for the class-impacting event to happen. And when it did, it felt small to me. It didn’t have a very big punch.
From the description I thought this would be 20 perspectives on the same moment/day/event where each subsequent story would fill in what really happened. [I was expecting something like the first part of the amazing book, The Candymakers, where each of the four characters tells their version of the A part of the story before moving back to the main character’s perspective for the wrap up of the book. It’s part of what makes The Candymakers so brilliant.] Instead, this was one story arc, and each kid told part of it as it moved along.
This format and story didn’t work for me. I struggled to stay engaged. I didn’t know the characters well enough to have them drive me from page to page through the story. And then there wasn’t a lot of action or punch to the “event” to drive me on either. I struggled to stick with this. I won’t be posting a rating for this one.
When it comes to multiple perspective stories, I prefer a Rob Buyea story or something like The Reckless Club. I think those are stronger examples of the format – fewer characters and higher stakes.
Other readers have found this delightful, so if the premise sounds interesting to you, check it out. It wasn’t a good fit for me.