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A review by falconerreader
Tradition by Brendan Kiely
4.0
3.5 stars. I might round up to four stars because man, does this book have its heart in the right place. Or I might drop it to 3 stars because I'm a litle weirded out by this white guy writing about how this oher white guy learns to use his white male privilege to save the oppressed white girl. I guess I'll decide as I corral my thoughts in writing.
"That's all right; that's okay; you'll be working for us someday," chant the students at Fulbrook Academy when the public school team from Buffalo scores a goal against their hockey team. Which seems almost cartoonishly evil of them, right? But it's the same chant my high school used to taunt 7 of the 9 other teams in our league if they bested our teams. (One high school was roughly equivilant to our socio economic bracket, and one was home of the even richer kids.) That immense sense of entitlement is real, and ugly, and plays out in so many ways throughout the whole book. Male entitlement to the female body (with complete disregard of the human inhabiting said body) is the main thing Kiely examines, but he looks at homophobia and classism as well.
It can be hard to feel deep empathy for the travails of wealthy children at snooty New England private schools. I never quite got as invested in the characters as I wanted to, though I do have a soft spot for Bax. There's also the ongoing discussion about who needs to be telling what story, and you gotta wonder if Brendan is the one to tell Jules's story of assault by an ex. I'm also thinking about the White Savior trope as it translates to Male Savior, or the centering of the experience of the Enlightened One Who Isn' Like Those Racist/Sexist Ones versus the receipients of racism and sexism.
Still, he nails that horrifying sense of having your body treated as if it's a) separate from you and b) not yours to control. And while the slow build to understanding the male characters undergo is nice, it is, in the end, Jules and Aileen who reclaim their own dignity and strength. All American Boys does a lot towards gaining my trust in the author's sincerity as well. Plus, the book was engaging and well written, taking the story deeper than I'd initially expected. I'm going to go with the round-up.
"That's all right; that's okay; you'll be working for us someday," chant the students at Fulbrook Academy when the public school team from Buffalo scores a goal against their hockey team. Which seems almost cartoonishly evil of them, right? But it's the same chant my high school used to taunt 7 of the 9 other teams in our league if they bested our teams. (One high school was roughly equivilant to our socio economic bracket, and one was home of the even richer kids.) That immense sense of entitlement is real, and ugly, and plays out in so many ways throughout the whole book. Male entitlement to the female body (with complete disregard of the human inhabiting said body) is the main thing Kiely examines, but he looks at homophobia and classism as well.
It can be hard to feel deep empathy for the travails of wealthy children at snooty New England private schools. I never quite got as invested in the characters as I wanted to, though I do have a soft spot for Bax. There's also the ongoing discussion about who needs to be telling what story, and you gotta wonder if Brendan is the one to tell Jules's story of assault by an ex. I'm also thinking about the White Savior trope as it translates to Male Savior, or the centering of the experience of the Enlightened One Who Isn' Like Those Racist/Sexist Ones versus the receipients of racism and sexism.
Still, he nails that horrifying sense of having your body treated as if it's a) separate from you and b) not yours to control. And while the slow build to understanding the male characters undergo is nice, it is, in the end, Jules and Aileen who reclaim their own dignity and strength. All American Boys does a lot towards gaining my trust in the author's sincerity as well. Plus, the book was engaging and well written, taking the story deeper than I'd initially expected. I'm going to go with the round-up.