4.3
Marisol and her little sister, Gabi, have ended their long, dangerous trip into America, and found themselves on the thin ice of deportation back home. Marisol will do anything to keep her family in America, and keep Gabi safe, even if it involves putting herself in risk by taking part in the testing of a new technology. Plucked from the road mid-escape, Marisol finds herself the only ticket her sister has for a better life, the only person able to save Rey from her own traumatized mind, and stuck in the painful thoughts she thought she had left El Salvador.
This is an amazing example of speculative YA, and I'm honestly in awe of how well done it is. The teenage voice makes it a breeze to read quickly, yet its impossible not to get snagged on the emotion and trauma, or pause to fall into a rabbit hole of implications with the technology at hand.
I loved the comparisons snuck into this story. The first one that grabbed me, was the implication right at the beginning that there is a huge difference between a "refugee" and an "immigrant", and only one of them deserves to come to America. It's accepted by everyone in a way that's honestly terrifying- you have to earn your place with pain. You don't deserve a better life unless your old one burned to death.
And then you get the comparison of the different types of pain, which I just found wonderful. You see Marisol's grief for her brother- which in itself is split into a grief for who he was and a grief for his death/who he became. The strangling fear of what would happen to Gabi. Marisol's self-loathing. Rey's pain for her own brother. The real pain of life compared to the fake pain shown on the television. In fact, we could go into the fake reality shown in television, and how projecting the image of that compares to Marisol's actual life back in El Salvador and actual life in America. There are so many lenses! You get the points of views of different characters to flesh out a picture often, but you don't usually get to see how many perspectives are in one person, or how many identities.
The exploration of POVs really makes Marisol an understandable and realistic character, so that it's hard not to just get swept along with her narrative. You trust her, even when you wish she was making a different choice. Or, I should say, you trust her emotions to be strong enough to sway her, and you get why she'd come to the conclusions that she's coming to.
Rey is a little less tangible for me, but her pain is certainly well illustrated, and set alongside Marisol she does pop, just because she's such a different personality. I do think she's a better window than she is a character at times, but it's so much Marisol's story that it's hard to give Rey more spotlight.
PTSD is so prevalent in our society, and I can't express how appreciative I am of this narrative focusing on a teenage girl's PTSD. Most media that actually discusses PTSD will solely show the story of a soldier or victim of violence, and most of the time they are older men. School aged teens have a lot of PTSD, regular, non-military people have PTSD, anyone can have PTSD. As someone with PTSD, I don't see myself portrayed often, particularly not in YA. But here it is! Rey is traumatized, she goes to therapy, the adults around her understand that she is traumatized and she never has to prove this or have her pain downplayed. I don't think its a jump to say that Marisol also has PTSD, and the addition of this really helps paint a fuller, more accurate picture of the disorder and how it affects different people. The usage of triggers, the very not at all glamorous, painful portrayal of depression, all of it was so genuine and raw. I honestly think this book can help a lot of people realize their own trauma.
Another big theme in this book is taking on other people's pain and needs- which is obvious from the synopsis alone- and prioritizing other people instead of yourself. Marisol as a character has so little love for herself. She has regrets that tear her apart, she is full of guilt, she is terrified of the fact that she likes girls, she is terrified of having any negative feelings because she needs to be strong for her family. So she doesn't put the focus on herself, ever. She takes on the role of Gabi's protector, and then she takes on the additional role of Rey's protector, and you see how it hurts her, but she has to unlearn how to stop. And it isn't easy! Self-love is usually shown in a very tender, hopeful way, and I'm in no way trying to bash those interpretations because they're important too. But self-love and self-care are not always easy, pink-tinged, HEAs. They take work and planning and serious conversations. And this book gets that.
The Grief Keeper isn't quite a 5 star book for me, mostly because I would've like Rey to have more depth, and a little more digging in the themes, but I still really enjoyed this book.
