Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I can’t even remember when I started reading Shiny Misfits–suffice it to say that it was quite some time ago and I was definitely looking for a graphic novel to gift one of my girls at the time. I must have found a better option, however, because I got not-very-far into it before stalling and setting it aside. Last week, in an effort to pare down my ‘currently reading’ list on Goodreads, I picked it up again, and I finished it Monday night while waiting for my hubby to come to bed.

I was unimpressed.

So here’s the thing. The premise for Misfits has a LOT going on–Bay Ann is a vegetarian (or possibly vegan) main character of color (Middle Eastern, I think?) with cerebral palsy whose parents are divorced. She wins her school talent show with her dance routine (she can’t do stairs easily but CAN tap dance, apparently), but the boy she either hates or has a crush on–her attitude towards him was too inconsistent for me to make sense of–ends up in the spotlight instead. And since Bay Ann is obsessed with going viral (pretty much to the exclusion of all else), she now must find a way to beat him.

I did start out rooting for Bay Ann; she wants to be seen for her talents, not her disability, and I respect that. By the time I was 2/3 of the way through the book, however, I was over her. Her obsession with going viral is so unbelievably unhealthy that her parents’ failure to address the situation is disturbing, and her increasing brattiness towards those parents is only exceeded by her callous and cavalier treatment of her two loyal best friends. By the time she has her epiphany and starts trying to atone, I found it hard to care.

To be fair, that epiphany is a solid one–complete with a grand gesture–but she’d already lost me by then; I was glad but no longer significantly invested. Add to that a mother who is either an on-the-spectrum tiger mother or a caricature, a father who sleeps on the couch in his own house for reasons that aren’t ever fully explained, and a teacher whose disengagement, while hilarious, is unavoidably terrifying, and there just isn’t enough character authenticity for me to emotionally engage with (or be invested in) the story. I suppose I’ll pass it on and see what my 11-year-old thinks, but I wouldn’t rush out to get this one.

On the home front, I may finally have to make the major Walmart run I’ve been avoiding. May the odds be ever in my favor…