ospalh reviewed Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Shadow Children, #1)
Review of 'Among the Hidden (Shadow Children)' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Reads way too much like a book for fundamentalist Real True Christans™:
»Be afraid of the Government. The Child Protection Service, sorry, i mean the Population Police will come and take yu. What may look like child abuse from yur parents is just their way of protecting yu.«
»We ar against abortion, so our enemy, the liberals ar for forced abortion.«
Maybe that wasn’t the intent, but, that’s how it looked to me. Death of the author and all.
Sure, the parents didn’t talk about Jesus much, but, come on, the children were named Matthew, Mark and Luke, missing John just for legal reasons.
I ges i should add:
Authors set the sene; yu hav to look at the whole senario. It is not enuf to say that the parents did the best they could in the fictional, carefully crafted setting, yu hav also look at why the setting …
Reads way too much like a book for fundamentalist Real True Christans™:
»Be afraid of the Government. The Child Protection Service, sorry, i mean the Population Police will come and take yu. What may look like child abuse from yur parents is just their way of protecting yu.«
»We ar against abortion, so our enemy, the liberals ar for forced abortion.«
Maybe that wasn’t the intent, but, that’s how it looked to me. Death of the author and all.
Sure, the parents didn’t talk about Jesus much, but, come on, the children were named Matthew, Mark and Luke, missing John just for legal reasons.
I ges i should add:
Authors set the sene; yu hav to look at the whole senario. It is not enuf to say that the parents did the best they could in the fictional, carefully crafted setting, yu hav also look at why the setting was chosen. I think that was a »but what if liberals get their wishes, legally speaking?«, and then the forced abortion bits make no sense whatsoever.
The go-to example for distopian novels is, of course, 1984: there it is clear: what if Stalinism, but forty years more of it? With that in mind: how do yu get to this setting?
I sort-of get that the author didn’t mock the fatuity of the common independent agrarian laborer. (How can yu be a pig farmer and not know the word »offal«. But seriously, didn’t Mr. Garner do some calculation and see that hidroponic farming will not be worth it unless he grows grass in his basement?)
Also, not calling out the sexism of the male Garners was a real minus for the book.
Dictionary attacks already existed when the book was written. Also, where was the chat servers? How was it save from The Government before The Rally? And did the do rubber-hose ciyptanalisis before gunning them all down?
