The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl
Ratings13
Average rating4.2
This book was a sweet story about a girl trying to find her place in the world. It reflects anxieties all middle school kids have about fitting in and making friends.
Yet there were a couple things I didn't like (spoilers!):
1. Lucy makes some mathematical errors when calculating the expected time of dog pickup (e.g., the gambler's fallacy and not considering it as a Poisson process). This could be excused for a normal character, but as an alleged “genius” that solves a Putnam problem in 5 minutes it seems unlikely she would make such errors.
2. The plot with the dog getting cancer felt contrived to manipulate the emotions of the reader. I would have rather focused on feeling emotions towards the main human characters, but this kind of overshadowed anything they did. Also, the resolution was not really satisfying, as it felt very deus ex machina as well as thinking of all the suffering the new owner will have to endure just to assuage some child's guilt.
I am unexpectedly disappointed. This didn't do much for me. Not much happened, yet a lot was left ambiguous. But not in an open-ended way—more just unfinished. I think it could have been far more compelling, if things were explored a little more. I wanted to have a deeper understanding of Lucy. I wanted both Lucy and other characters to wrestle more with tensions between expressing yourself sans inhibition and trying to be “normal.” I wanted Lucy's OCD to be explained better, and I wanted some of the judgmental responses to OCD to be challenged. It seemed almost tacked on to make it harder for Lucy to blend in. I also think the “aloof boy always taking photos” trope is played out. And it romanticizes voyeurism. And it pretends candidly snapping pictures of a girl you secretly care for is interchangeable with emotional sensitivity. Middle grade is probably too young a genre for this to even be a thing.It does incorporate diversity, and I liked how Lucy's narration never spelled out any numbers. But it didn't move me like a lot of middle grade has. [b:Ghost 28954126 Ghost (Track, #1) Jason Reynolds https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1468787024s/28954126.jpg 49179183] and [b:Okay for Now 9165406 Okay for Now Gary D. Schmidt https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388860777s/9165406.jpg 14044509] both had great character development, for example. Examples featuring girl protagonists include [b:The Benefits of Being an Octopus 35890044 The Benefits of Being an Octopus Ann Braden https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1522849548s/35890044.jpg 57406781], [b:Front Desk 36127488 Front Desk Kelly Yang https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507986199s/36127488.jpg 51903030], or even [b:Matilda 39988 Matilda Roald Dahl https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388793265s/39988.jpg 1015554]. This wasn't outright bad, per se. I had high hopes, and they fell flat. I realize I'm in the minority here. Hopefully you like it more than me.