Good Kings Bad Kings

There's a lot to like about this book but my overall experience with it was just average. Most of the storyline really worked for me (except Yessie's little field trip near the end, which just felt kind of silly and out of place) and I liked having points of view from characters in different parts of the system. However there is one character who feels SO author-voice to me, like just halting the plot for lectures directly from the author, and a couple of the points of view were written in ways that felt borderline racist (especially the way the Mexican character's accent is written out).

Nussbaum succeeds at her goal here: to write a book about characters with disabilities, who have personalities beyond their disabilities, interact with each other and with characters who are able-bodied. The characters are fully fleshed out and interesting, realistic characters.

But this absolutely comes off as a political piece. It is certainly enjoyable in its own right, but it is impossible to read without thinking of it as a piece about disability-rights, criticizing institutions (which, I agree with in spirit, but also agree that there are nuances to the discussion not fully elucidated here.) and discussing discrimination, over-utilization of intelligence and personality testing and casting a cynical eye over seemingly all parties involved in providing care to those with disabilities.

Perhaps the best part of the book is that Nussbaum portrays even most of her villains as human, simply ignorant or over-worked or otherwise preoccupied. She does have a few truly irredeemable characters, but by and large, especially for a piece trying to make a statement, this is done well – an invitation to dialogue.

Good Kings, Bad Kings is aptly titled as it reminded me of a game of chess. In this novel, the pieces have been meticulously laid out—the advocate, the abuser, the scammer, the victim, the lesbian, the bishop, the pawn—and all the moves are predetermined, characters are not allowed to make their own decisions. It's set in a home for adolescents with disabilities. All these elements together make the novel a bit too much like an after-school special for my taste.

I liked the author's choice of using a first-person, rotating point of view. I'm a fan of multiple povs in a work. Unfortunately, it wasn't done all that well here. Each characters sounds nearly the same. No matter their background, they spoke within the same spectrum of street-talking, no-nonsense, WhachootalkinboutWillis speech.

And there was this thing with statements being questions that I didn't understand?

Good Kings, Bad Kings is well-intentioned. The author's passion for the subject and her concern for youths with disabilities is evident. Therefore, I'd recommend the novel to those looking for a feel-good, movie-of-the-week experience. Fans of simple YA will probably enjoy it too. On a bad day, this is the sort of novel I'd probably give two stars, but I've had a good day, so there it is.