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⭐️ ⭐️
Personal Score: D
Critical Score: C-

An awkward crossroads of genre and audience age. I wish Spinelli had committed to dystopian, or wrote for an older audience.

The moral messaging here is shallow, the plotting sparse, and the tone unsure. I suppose the author was trying to be edgy, genre-blending, and unique, but the end result is, to me, a mess of half-ways.

Also, the ending implies the moral triumph is that soon the town kids will want to own the pigeons, not see them killed. Yay? That’s a whole different problem of the human heart.

I appreciate the commentary on toxic masculinity, but the viewpoint is sturdily from the boy’s, so there is so much limitation in the treatment of Dorothy. Also, there are so few solid resolutions on issues (like the treatment of women) that, in a kid’s book, shouldn’t be concluded with such ambiguity.