Shaun David Hutchinson

From the critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants and At the Edge of the Universe comes a mind-bending, riveting novel about a teen who was born to a virgin mother and realizes she has the power to heal—but that power comes at a huge cost. Sixteen-year-old Elena Mendoza is the product of a virgin birth. This can be scientifically explained (it’s called parthenogenesis), but what can’t be explained is how Elena is able to heal Freddie, the girl she’s had a crush on for years, from a gunshot wound in a Starbucks parking lot. Or why the boy who shot Freddie, David Combs, disappeared from the same parking lot minutes later after getting sucked up into the clouds. What also can’t be explained are the talking girl on the front of a tampon box, or the reasons that David Combs shot Freddie in the first place. As more unbelievable things occur, and Elena continues to perform miracles, the only remaining explanation is the least logical of all—that the world is actually coming to an end, and Elena is possibly the only one who can do something about it.

The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

kelsey

“the only things you can control are the choices you make, and that has to be enough.”

so in the beginning it kinda dragged on for me? but once getting into it it was amazing. 

also freddie and elena are super cute we love an f/f story with a healthy relationship.

Jamieson

"What is going on?
"Maybe nothing" I said. "Maybe the end of the world. I'll let you know when I figure it out"


so I'm finally reviewing this book. And Honestly? I can't remember the last time I felt so indecisive about a book - because I really wanted to love this and yet the more I think about it the more I don't think I do.  This review is going to be hard to write. 

The thing is, this book is by no means bad. Shaun David Hutchinson is such an excellent writer and I constantly value the perfect mix of quirky, philosophical and sci-fi elements that permeate his books.

 And yet the whole time reading this I thought well I don't like it as much as his other books. It's an observation I feel bad about - because I kind of think comparing an authors work to their other works constantly is a bit unfair. But at the same time, I KNOW what it feels like to really love one of his books and this wasn't it. 

About halfway through I thought - "this doesn't feel as authentic and raw and honest as his other book. I feel like something is missing" I don't know if that was because it wasn't ownvoices like his other works, or something else completely, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. 

So, essentially what this book is about is a girl called Elena Mendoza who one day gets the miraculous power to heal people of ailments. First she heals her crush, Freddie, from a gunshot wound - and then she amps things up from there. But, everytime she heals someone, the cost is that people across the world are raptured at random. This book follows Elena as she tries to decide if healing people is worth the rapturing, and also explored her crush on Freddie, another girl at school. 

One thing I KNOW I didn't engage with much was the characters. I couldn't find myself falling in love with any character - which is a big problem in a character driven book. I felt like Elena, Freddie and Fadil especially were characters I could have loved, but something wasn't working. I never found myself able to engage with these characters fully and I don't really have any strong feelings about them, which is such a shame. I think this became especially apparent when characters from Hutchinson's other books appeared and my heart LEAPT, and I thought - oh I wish I felt that way about these characters. Fadil was my favourite and he was in it ENTIRELY NOT ENOUGH. 

Coming into characters, the romance didn't work for me. I understand it was supposed to be about discovering the real person behind the idealised facade that we create of people, but I think Freddie and Elena never really had the right chemistry. They spent so long being mean to eachother and while I didn't dislike the romance I also didn't feel particularly strongly about it, which is a shame. I also think some of the side characters were undeveloped, especially Freddie's friend who was just essentially the 'mean girl' character.

On the upside of characters - I think the exploration of sexuality was well done. Starting with Elena, I liked the strong bisexual representation. It was cool to have a bi character who's out to everyone and uses the label bi and doesn't have a huge "the inner struggle" theme. I really liked the bi rep. I also really liked the questioning asexual representation for Fadil. Questioning rep is so important and I liked how labels and things were discussed, but ultimately it was questioning rep which is so important. 


  sometimes we lose our way and can't separate the mystery from the misery, and when that happens, sometimes we make bad choices. Horrible choices that ripple through the lives of everyone involved. 


But like I said Hutchinson is an excellent author and there is some really good things in this book. Primarily, it is about choices, and decisions, and which are wrong and right. The characters grapple with so many massive questions and the philosophical underpinnings of this book are really interesting. I think Shaun David Hutchinson did a wonderful job at presenting his themes and ideas and exploring them with nuance and care. If you're interested in a YA book that explores the choices teenagers have to make, as well as the choices life forces us to make, I think you'd like this. Hutchinson explores how powerful choices can be, and the consequences of giving and taking those choices and this was INTERESTING, it just wasn't enough to carry the whole book for me. 

Overall I think this is a good book ! I do ! Some elements just didn't work for me much :( But I love how representative and diverse and interesting this book is, and I love that it forefronts so many issues never really explored in YA. It's definitely a unique, quirky book. And I can appreciate that it took a solid dig at a certain American Presidential Cheeto. I think if I'd liked the characters more I definitely would have loved this book! For me the elements didn't all come together but I still highly recommend this book because it's great? And SO well thought out. It just wasn't a complete OMGLOVE book for me 

thankyou to the publisher for sending me an arc in exchange for my honest review !

 SOME INFO

Representation 

Elena (mc): Bisexual & Cuban
Fadil: Muslim and 'middle eastern' and also possibly on ace spectrum (he discusses if the label fits him but doesn't settle on anything)
Freddie: Bisexual 

Minor characters:
Indian side character
mentioned trans character 
minor f/f relationship & lesbian/bi characters
gay male & m/m relationship
character with cystic fibrosis

drug use tw: 
There is a small scene which didn't exactly sit well with me - a character gives another pot brownies without the character knowing they're pot brownies, I think this may be potentially triggering so I'm mentioning it. 

deadnaming tw:
the main character deadnames a trans member of the school halfway through the book

tw: shooting, drug use, homophobia/biphobia, deadnaming of a trans character

courtney garrison

** spoiler alert **
           
This book was absolutely amazing. the writing and overall story were so good I couldn’t help but keep reading. It was so different than anything I have ever read. The best way I can describe it is faith/atheism/science and it was so fucking good.

Your MC is Elena Mendoza she is born from a virgin birth and now in her teens discovers she can heal people. When she heals a person others get raptured by beams of light falling from the sky. It started out a few each time, but now there are thousands gone. The voices she hears tell her the world is ending and she has to do this, she doesn’t have a choice, but does she.

Elena Mendoza started out a very naive character to her abilities/gift. The more she learned about herself the more she learned and grew as a character. She was so selfish to me in the beginning and she thought more of others in the end. She understood that she was taking the choice away from others and ultimately learned how to give that choice back to them and let the world decide. That was a true character growth moment for me.

Freddie is didn’t expect to be one of the main characters at first, but I’m glad she did. She was such a help to Elena and helped her grow as a person. they really helped each other grow together and be better people. Freddie had so much to offer the world and didn’t see it herself, but Elena did. I was so ecstatic to see their characters grow and morph into this fabulous relationship.

I can not speak on the bisexual rep in this book, but it is well done. There are also mentions of suicide in this book, but it does address it pretty well in my opinion. If suicide is not something you are comfortable reading about, I would skip this book.

I loved every minute of reading this book. I drug it out as long as I could in order to savor every moment of reading it. I loved the writing and the way it mixed faith and science together. I have fallen in love with Shaun’s writing and now I want all of his books. I always see Dylan the reader bragging about we are the ants and now I know why. If we are the ants is anything like this, I want Shaun to write all the books, his writing and this book is amazing.

A Junior Library Guild Selection “Surreal, brainy, and totally captivating.” —Booklist (starred review) “Provocative and moving.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Hutchinson artfully blends the realistic and the surreal.” —School Library Journal (starred review) From the critically acclaimed author of We Are the Ants and At the Edge of the Universe comes a mind-bending, riveting novel about a teen who was born to a virgin mother and realizes she has the power to heal—but that power comes at a huge cost. Sixteen-year-old Elena Mendoza is the product of a virgin birth. This can be scientifically explained (it’s called parthenogenesis), but what can’t be explained is how Elena is able to heal Freddie, the girl she’s had a crush on for years, from a gunshot wound in a Starbucks parking lot. Or why the boy who shot Freddie, David Combs, disappeared from the same parking lot minutes later after getting sucked up into the clouds. Other things that can’t be explained are the talking girl on the front of a tampon box, or the reasons that David Combs shot Freddie in the first place. As more unbelievable things occur, and Elena continues to perform miracles, the only remaining explanation is the least logical of all—that the world is actually coming to an end, and Elena is possibly the only one who can do something about it.

Flavia Louise

This book was very interesting and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit

Archer

Candyce Kirk

Kath Lau

I loved the bi rep and exporation of sexuality plus the diverse cast of characters. But I thought the ending was a let down for me.

The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

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