Michael Buchsbaum's Reviews > Child of Another Kind

WARNING: Slight spoilers

VERDICT: A fun and fascinating sci-fi jaunt through-and-through, with well-rounded characters. Suspension of disbelief may be necessary to swallow the reasoning for some parts and character decisions in the second half of the book. Still, against the backdrop of a remarkably imaginative universe and characters worth rooting for, both detractors hardly poisons Child of Another Kind to the DNF pile. Fun read!

PROS
+ Fantastic and tense introduction chapter setting up Cynthia and Maddie both to be interesting, thoughtful characters.

+ Great world building, with a loving mother from a seemingly simple southern town. It feels like every protagonist is super smart, or cunning, or strong. So it’s refreshing to have a protagonist whose main super power is loving her daughter. It works well with the "other place" she encounters, and her faith being juxtaposed against it's strangeness made me really come to love her insights.

+ The close focus on Maddie and cynthia, their feelings and struggles, works to the novels advantage. The author understood why we’re here: these two characters.

+ The world building is fascinating and well thought-out. Hard to go into much detail here without big spoilers, but the reason Maddie has her powers wasn't at all what I expected.

CONS
- Maddie’s and Cynthia's seemingly mute emotional reactions to certain events did frustrate a little. Although there’s reason for Maddie's somewhat cold manner stated in the book, I would’ve enjoyed to see her words and actions reflect what she’s just gone through.

- The teacher's explanations went on a bit long. They were universally interesting, though the vagaries of many initial explanations to the “other place” (to again avoid spoilers) often came with “that’ll be explained later” or "that's not my place to tell you." It killed the pacing just a little for me.

NEUTRAL

= The country club in the OTHER "other place" made me laugh out loud. It's so true.