The Hanging Gardens

Guess who just rage-typed three pages on this YA series I was supposed to be listening to for fun. Go on, guess. It was supposed to be a brain break, not to break my brain. :(

No really, this author has constructed a nightmarish dystopia and she doesn't even realize it. She thinks it's all luxury porn and badassery, when really it's child soldiers being sent to die for adults and racialized prejudice so blatant I'd think it was obnoxiously heavy-handed if there were any hint she knew what she'd written. There is a literal "separate but equal" approach between two groups in the school for Special People. There are repeated assertions that girls from one group are fun to mess around with, but not the type of woman you'd marry.

Plus bonus slut-shaming perpetrated by our Exceptional Girl protagonist.

Plus there are only two POC, and all but one of the group in power are repeatedly described as the palest of the pale.

Plus nobody outside the gender binary.

Plus prose that's workmanlike at best and downright awful at worst.

I'm at the point where anger has fizzled out and it just makes me sad. I kind of want to steal the protagonist away, give her cookies and a quiet space to think, and tell her that it's okay to put herself first until she believes it. This despite how incredibly obnoxious the kid is.

When did I start thinking of teens as kids and feeling desperately protective of them, even if they're really annoying (and fictional)?