nerd teacher [books] reviewed Millions by Frank Cottrell-Boyce
Disappointingly awful.
1 star
This book was... well, incredibly short-sighted for what it was trying. If it had a theme, it threw it away repeatedly. It tries to deal with: perspectives of money, poverty, and death of a parent.
It genuinely deals with... zero of these?
The entire plot related to the perspectives of money (how money makes people worse) is not functional in any way possible. The protagonist (and therefore the audience) learns very little about how money can possibly change people. It makes the assumption that all people who receive money change for the worse. While, yes, people who receive money become more politically conservative... It doesn't necessarily mean that they all immediately become massively paranoid over every single thing.
The views on poverty were pretty minimal. It really gives the idea that FCB has never met a Poor Person in his life, especially since he seems to equate "being poor" with …
This book was... well, incredibly short-sighted for what it was trying. If it had a theme, it threw it away repeatedly. It tries to deal with: perspectives of money, poverty, and death of a parent.
It genuinely deals with... zero of these?
The entire plot related to the perspectives of money (how money makes people worse) is not functional in any way possible. The protagonist (and therefore the audience) learns very little about how money can possibly change people. It makes the assumption that all people who receive money change for the worse. While, yes, people who receive money become more politically conservative... It doesn't necessarily mean that they all immediately become massively paranoid over every single thing.
The views on poverty were pretty minimal. It really gives the idea that FCB has never met a Poor Person in his life, especially since he seems to equate "being poor" with "not being able to afford material goods." This is especially true when you look at the 'discussion' questions at the back, and there's something like "Is poverty the same everywhere?" This whole thing, paired with the book's incessant focus on making an attempt to compare nations in Africa with 'poor' people in the UK, does not sit well with me. It really comes off as patronising (to people in the many African nations) and overly simplistic and neglecting the fact that there are people in poverty in the UK.
It's ridiculous, to be honest.
The bit about the mother is... really overlooked as part of the narrative. For wanting to pretend it was a 'theme' of the book, the author barely included it at all. It never shows the family coping with the death of the mother; it only has boys walking around using her being dead as an excuse. When mom's spirit is shoe-horned in later, it's weird because the boys never talk about it. Damian sort of remembers her in a passing way in normal life (while also asking all the saints who visit him if they've seen her).
I also wish people would stop telling me that this protagonist is autistic. This is not dealt with in the text ever; it's not clearly stated, and it's not obvious. Really, the protagonist sounds like an overly naive, very immature child that's written by an adult who forgot what children were despite writing books for that target audience.
PS: Was there ever a Euro day for the UK? I'm basing this on shoddy history, but I can't find a time where the UK ever truly entertained using the Euro. If they did, it always seemed to be in reports that mentioned it "might be positive" but that they didn't recommend it; I honestly do not remember a time where all the money needed to be changed over? Which just makes this book feel weird, especially if you're not certain about the historical context or spend a lot of time questioning it (and not finding successful Google searches to answer the question).