Moral obligations of YA literature

Mice by Gordon Reece
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I didn't like this book and I don't feel I have a right to be overly critical of a book unless I can put in the time to explain why - so here goes.

This is a YA book and, whilst I'm not of the opinion that YA literature should shield readers from the harsh realities of the world, I do believe that it has a moral responsibility to treat difficult issues with complexity and insight. As the narrator of the novel notes:

"So much of what Mum was was made up of what she'd read. Is that what our middle-class culture created? People formed more by the books they'd read than the lives they'd lived?" (p.199)

To the extent that this may be true, I was disappointed by the lack of empathy or insight shown in the novel. The main character is a victim of cruel bullying which drives her to decide to suicide. A series of events saves her from taking her own life. She then goes on to murder two people. Despite having been a victim herself, Shelley, the first-person narrator of the novel, shows little or no empathy for her victims. There's a level of egotism that is in itself quite frightening. In another moment of reflection she says:

"After everything I've lived through, surely I'll be able to write something truly great? After all, how many writers actually know what it's like to kill somebody?" (pp.224-225)

And this is where I think the novel fails. Reece didn't convince me that he truly understood his subject matter. Too often I felt that Shelley's introspective moments were there to move me to the next point in the plot rather than to explore honestly this difficult subject matter.

If the novel had been about a less difficult and important topic or if it had taken a much lighter hand to it's subject matter, I could be more forgiving, but if you choose to write a YA novel about these topics you have a moral responsibility to say something that matters. I don't think this novel does.

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