16-year-old Ava Lee is heading back to school one year after a house fire left her severely disfigured. She’s used to the names, the stares, the discomfort, but there’s one name she hates most of all: Survivor. What do you call someone who didn’t mean to survive? Who sometimes wishes she hadn’t?
When she meets a fellow survivor named Piper at therapy, Ava begins to feel like she’s not facing the nightmare alone. Piper helps Ava reclaim the pieces of Ava Before the Fire, a normal girl who kissed boys and sang on stage. But Piper is fighting her own battle, and when Ava almost loses her best friend, she must decide if the new normal she’s chasing has more to do with the girl in the mirror — or the people by her side.
This book starts a year after Ava survived a fire that killed her parents and sister cousin and after months of recovery, it's time she goes back to school instead of being homeschooled. Also time for a support group. Ava has suffered extreme face burns and does not look forward to leaving her house everyday.
With this topic, some Ableism is expected. Internal Ableism is something every Disabled person has to deal with at some point, But I did notice some by Ava that wasn't internal, both physically disabled characters mock mental disabilities. "Spastic" is used which I know that author being American; she might not know that term is offensive and it could be argued that Ava is being ableist against herself but that term is very specific so I think it probably should have been changed for the UK publication. Though, don't worry the term Selective Mutism was used as an insult and not capitalised correctly, so there went my goodwill to this book. This could have been used as a way of making the character unlikable, yet even then unchallenged Ableism is not the way to do it. If not familiar with Selective Mutism then you might not pick up on what a shitty thing this is to say. Maybe the author just doesn't that there is an anxiety disorder called Selective Mutism. Either way, it is a disorder and its not okay to use it that way. I get all the characters are the worst. You don't need to use Ableism against other people to make a character unlikeable. Ableism is not acceptable in media unless its there to be challenged and it was not challenged.
| This book does deal with Internal Ableism and with having burn survivers that makes sense. It's mostly Ava coming to grips with her new appearance and a touch on her loss of mobility. There also ableist related bullying and a mean girl thing going on. So I am Disabled, so I appreciated the emphasis on how bad inspiration porn is, but I did think some of the advice given by the supposed therapist was terrible. My Disability is invisible so I don't get questions unless I open that conversation but you do not owe anyone an explanation or time, about what you've went through. Kids are slightly different, but Adults should know better and you do not need to be a role model for them. |
The characters are all unlikable,I mean I think Piper is meant to be the worst but so are lot of the character we're meant to like. Pipper could just be 16-year-old with bad coping mechanisms. But there are points that we are meant to be liking and relating to these characters and I still would happily throw them off a bridge or as the kids say Yeet them. Ava has a really shitty attitude about everything, some of it is understandable and she meant to develop away from it. It just this seems like always been this way, even before the fire. I think more time was needed for character-development.
All these characters have trauma so I feel sorry for them sometimes but they not real and I hate the one character who doesn't have trauma but that's awkward because he's also the only person of colour in this book. He's a "nice" guy who doesn't know shit about the thing he's trying to gatekeep you from. It being a traditionally feminine subject doesn't change that.
This is a friendship heavy book, which I do love, except its love triangle where no one likes each other. I thought this book was going to go in another way but it doesn't. Piper's friendship to Ava is both a good and bad thing at times, I would have liked to see that explored more. I thought they were going to be more self-reflection of each other problems, which they are but not dealt with. In favour, we have a pointless romance with a "Nice" guy. A lot relationships are introduced and we don't get to them which would have been a lot more interesting than the musical stuff. This book also has homophobia and no Queer characters so definitely not fun. New rule you don't get have homophobia in a book when you have no Queer characters. The benefit of the doubt is that making a statement about toxic masculinity which goes hand in hand with homophobia.
| There's also a lot of awkward musical references, like pretending 'Annie' is a vague reference. There are three film adaptions and it been parodied several times. Basically, this book didn't get off on the best foot for me. It does get vaguer but the reaction to them both knowing 'Annie' made me hate both characters in that interaction. |
There are lot of obvious plot things through the novel but can be somewhat forgiven being debut novel. It's there are a lot of them. You can really tell that certain things only happen for plot. The musical they doing is the Wizard of Oz, spoilers Ava gets the part of the good witch, who has a two-minute solo that can be sung by almost anyone. It's not a song that needs an amazing voice but it made out to be this amazing song. She sings 'Over the Rainbow' for her audition. When going for a specific part, you sing that song in auditions for the character. It makes no sense for her to sing that in re-auditions which are basically never a thing unless you barely have a chorus. They have an understudy for Dorthy which makes little sense, why not just have her play the good witch and get chorus girl to do the witch if anything happens. It's not a professional show, you're not going to have perfect casting. This is the Andrew Lloyd Webber version so there is a more difficult song for the good witch to sing. This whole thing makes no sense, it seems to take them weeks to host this audition despite knowing that they need to re-cast. Basically, Stewart wanted Ava not to audition but to still be in the show. I wasn't enjoying myself by this point so I'm over fixating on a thing that was a tool for having a shorter timeline but to show character growth.
The writing style was odd and confusing sometimes. Characters are often referred to as if they being introduced for the first time after their names have been established e.g. "the girl in the wheelchair". "The Boy in black." Its basic first person besides that.
Overall, I give this 2/5 stars for Skin Transplants. Nothing new with the Musical stuff (I'm literally listening to another book that has support group scenes and involves a too on the nose musical as well) or the Burn survival which is fine. There's also a lot of books about teenagers getting burnt in accidents and learning to deal with the physical and emotional trauma of that, so it just another one. As my lecturers used to tell me I'm really negative. I didn't like a lot of this book, it has potential but its ableist enough that I'm never gonna recommend it. More importantly, there was just a lot I didn't enjoy. Would I read Stewart again? Maybe. I'm just kinda done, causal ableism gets old quick and to find it in a book that's meant to be dealing with Ableism is not what I'm here for.
Read: 4/4/2020 to 12/4/2020
Reviewed: 12/4/2020 - 22/04/2020
Medium: E-arc
Published Date: 16th April 2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK
Source: Netgalley
CW: Homophobia, Ableism, Ableism slurs used (Spastic, Cripple), Death; Hospitals; surgery; alcoholic referenced; Bullying; Attempted Suicide; Drug use; Fire; Death of Parents; Death of a Child; Grief; Car Crash mentioned;
Disclaimer: I got this book for free before it was published in the form of an E-arc for an honest review.
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