{"id":2645,"date":"2016-03-21T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/?p=2645"},"modified":"2020-11-29T23:31:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T23:31:54","slug":"review-the-shattering-by-karen-healey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/2016\/03\/21\/review-the-shattering-by-karen-healey\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Shattering<\/i> by Karen Healey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keri Pedersen-Doherty\u2019s anxiety causes her to always anticipate the worst-case scenario. She tries to manage her anxiety by always having a plan; she knows what she will do if she breaks her arm, if there\u2019s an earthquake \u2014 even if her parents die. Some people may call it morbid. Keri calls it being prepared.<\/p>\n

But then comes something she isn\u2019t prepared for \u2014 something awful \u2014 and Keri\u2019s world is turned upside-down.<\/p>\n

The Shattering<\/a><\/em> begins two weeks after Keri\u2019s brother unexpectedly and violently kills himself. It follows her, her former best friend Janna, and Janna\u2019s friend Sione, both of whom have also lost older brothers to suicide. The three unlikely friends are joined both by their tragedy and, as Sione presents his theory that their brothers\u2019 deaths were actually murders, by their determination to find and stop the killers. Through their investigations, they realize that Janna\u2019s new boyfriend, Takeshi, is likely the next victim, and they fight frantically to save him before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>\t\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tBUY ON BOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t\tBOOKSHOP<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t& support independent bookstores\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/article> \n\n\t<\/center><\/div>The Shattering<\/em> is a fantastic, gripping novel that manages to deal with mental illness, learning disabilities, racism, colonialism, cultural appropriation, class issues, sexuality, interracial relationships, sex positivity, and suicide without once coming across as a preachy after-school special.<\/p>\n

Keri\u2019s anxiety, as we see it in the book, is very mild. While she narrates her past preparations for various possible disasters, we don\u2019t see her affected by her anxiety throughout the course of the book. Instead, she seems pragmatic and practical, coming up with straightforward, well-thought-out plans to save Takeshi and avenge her brother.<\/p>\n

Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the three protagonists, but Keri\u2019s narration is the only one told in the first person. For this reason, I was hoping to gain more of an insight into her anxiety, to see her in its paralyzing grip and watch her grapple with it. As someone with anxiety, it\u2019s rare to see the condition portrayed in a way that\u2019s respectful and realistic, and I have no doubt that if any author could do that, it\u2019s Karen Healey.<\/p>\n

In a guest post<\/a>, Healey revealed that her inspiration for the novel was her own anxiety; while she sees herself as more similar in personality to Janna and Sione, Keri\u2019s anxiety is directly modeled on Healey\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Disappointingly (for me, at least), Keri\u2019s anxiety seems more of a framing device than anything else; the novel begins with her description of her brother\u2019s suicide and how it affected her sense of self in regards to her need to be prepared, but this description is told in flashback. In a postscript that takes place a year after the action of the novel, Keri briefly summarizes the depression that gripped her after the events of the book, and devotes exactly one paragraph to a discussion of her treatment.<\/p>\n

Let me make it clear that I\u2019m not complaining. When I finished reading The Shattering<\/em> for the first time, I raved about it to everyone I knew. I\u2019m planning on reviewing it for my own feminist blog (as it addresses many issues I write about there). I was even thinking of doing a giveaway to promote the post, but decided I\u2019d rather keep my copy of the novel to re-read or lend to friends.<\/p>\n

However, since I went into the book knowing I was reviewing it to look at the protagonist\u2019s anxiety, I expected that that anxiety would have a stronger influence on her character and the plot; it\u2019s actually fairly peripheral. My concern with this fact is that it would be easy to dismiss Keri\u2019s concerns as her simply \u201cworrying too much\u201d or needing to \u201clighten up\u201d \u2014 admonitions that anyone with anxiety will recognize as dismissive and hurtful. By relegating Keri\u2019s mental illness to the background, Healey potentially minimizes the overwhelming effects that anxiety can have on a sufferer.<\/p>\n

However, one of Healey\u2019s strengths as a writer lies in her ability to include diversity without highlighting it in a way that makes it feel Other. In The Shattering<\/em>, each character\u2019s difference is an integral part of who he or she is, but is never presented as the singular defining trait of the character.<\/p>\n

Keri fully accepts her anxiety and over-preparing as part of who she is. While she knows it\u2019s something that others will mock if she reveals it, she doesn\u2019t beat herself up over it or try to change herself.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Sione knows that he doesn\u2019t display the traditionally masculine traits that his brother did, and that his interests in dressing well and reading books cause other Samoan people to think that he\u2019s denying his culture and trying to be white. While this fact bothers him and causes conflicts with other characters, he seems to be, as a person, on a road to accepting himself as he is.<\/p>\n

In an even more subtle example of disability presented in the novel, Janna\u2019s (undiagnosed) learning disability has caused her difficulty in school, and she\u2019s self-conscious about being perceived as stupid. However, her musical talent, overall confidence, and general love of life define her personality much more strongly than her disability does.<\/p>\n

Overall, I highly recommend the book. It may not contain as thorough a portrayal of anxiety as I\u2019d hoped for, but its representations of other kinds of diversity more than make up for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keri\u2019s anxiety seems more of a framing device than anything else; The Shattering<\/em> doesn’t contain as thorough a portrayal of anxiety as I\u2019d hoped for, though its representations of other kinds of diversity more than make up for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":2646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62,522],"tags":[221,222],"genre":[9],"age_category":[8],"disability":[19,102,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6905,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2645\/revisions\/6905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2645"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=2645"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=2645"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=2645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}