Anatis Lynch

THIS IS NOT HOW DEPRESSION WORKS

Revisado: 12-09-18

Now, this book would have been a normal average with flaws but harmless. I would have given it 3 stars and moved on, but this book is not harmless. This book should have been just a teen drama. Not only did the “murder” feel mostly pointless, everything to do with the murder is either without logic, pointless, or outright offensive and wrong.

This book does not understand what depression is. I have depression and I know many others with depression and this caricature of the prevalent mental illness such a leap backwards in how the world should see such a common issue. This book acts as though depression gives you all the motivation in the world to destroy your enemies. It even equates depression to terroristic activities and that is just so ignorant. I am concerned that people who read this book might believe this is how depression really works and will be embarrassed or afraid to say how they really feel. Depression is not a gateway to school shootings. I am not qualified to diagnose Simon, but just saying that he did all of this just because he was depressed is ignorant and offensive.

A wrap up of the rest of the things wrong with this book:
- Bland, cutout characters
- No logic during the criminal investigation or knowledge of how police really work (Also pretty offensive to the police)
- Addy’s character development is completely walked back and her two-dimensional mother does not help the issue. Using extremes doesn’t help people because they can simply say well, my mom isn’t that bad. You need realistic people to make an impact
- Jake being a villain is not in line with his character. Yes, he is an abusive asshole, but attempted murder and everything else he does shows a level of immaturity that he just doesn’t show throughout the rest of the book. It comes out of nowhere and feels like a twist just for a twist.
- Janae could have stopped all of this if she actually cared about Simon. The second your friend starts being depressed or starts talking about shooting up the school you get him help, you don’t just wait for it to pass. This entire book and Simon’s death is her fault. (Also, that “edited recording” that Jake had over her makes absolutely no sense. Even if he could edit it to sound like she planned it the police know when something is edited. They have people that work specifically on that)
- Kris is an underused character that seems to just be there to get some lgbtq+ reads and that’s kind of offensive but I don’t know how to feel about it so I’ll just say that he is underused and the fact that he figured out Simon killed himself in his second scene is laughable
- Sorry to come back to this but the police are so incompetent in this book that it’s absolutely infuriating. Saying the police are doing a bad job is not enough! Give a reason or write a good mystery.
- This author has no idea how high school works
- There are maybe one or two things in this book that Simon writes about that are over the line. Everything else is literally something people should know. Would you hate a kid that told you a boy was secretly filming you when you were in his bedroom? Would you hate someone that sold out a drug dealer that sold opioids? (not just weed, no. The drug that is killing hundreds of people and is an epidemic in America) This high school is so flush with terrible people doing terrible things that I’m shocked half the student body isn’t in jail.

In conclusion, this book is harmful in its depiction of mental illness and the mystery is poorly thought out. It should have just been a high school drama and left out the entire murder angle.

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Should Not Have Been the Final Book

Revisado: 09-10-18

Allow me to start by proclaiming my love for this series. The Illuminae Files is one of the most fun and emotional series I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Nothing about this book truly disappoints me except for its length. I could not force myself to care for the two new characters introduced in this book as much as I care for the the other two duos. The other two got books almost entirely to themselves so the reader could learn who they were and care about them. I did care about and like them, but they felt out of place with the rest of the group at the end. This book is nearly evenly split between them and the older characters so we have less time with them and I feel like their plot was rushed.

This brings me to my main point. There should have been a fourth book with no new main characters introduced to wrap up everything, or at the very least an extra 100 or so pages in this book. There is a perfect fourth book location mentioned in the end of Obsidio. They rest for months on a farming planet but that is just a few lines. The wrap up should have taken place there, in my opinion.

All in all, I love his book and this series, I will mourn that it is over for years to come. My only wish is that there would have been four books instead of 3.

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