Dear Martin


Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Blurb:

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League– but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.
Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King do find out.

Review:
The cop shoves him to the ground beside the police cruiser as he asks if Justyce understand his rights. Justyce doesn't remember hearing any rights, but his ears had been ringing from the two blow to the head, so maybe he missed them. He swallows more blood.

It's hard to read a book like this one and afterwards have to say that, yeah, it's okay, but really nothing special simply because the topic is very polarizing. Which is, as you might have figured already, exactly what I want to say about this book. The topic is interesting, yes, and, yes, police in the USA have to start getting their shit together if they want to move forward in any meaningful sort of way, but I didn't really feel anything while reading.

I can't even tell you why I didn't feel emotionally connected to the story, it simply didn't happen. There are some dramatic events taking place but I couldn't help feeling indifferent. Moreover, while I enjoyed the idea of "I'm going to pretend-write to MLK to work through my problems" I never actually really thought this particular element was implemented all that well. Often his letters were hardly more than a diary, sometimes rehashing events I already knew about without adding anything new, but never really engaging with particular ideas or the persona of MLK as such. Maybe other people will find more gratification when reading those letters but I, personally, would have probably even forgotten the original purpose if Justyce hadn't walked around town and told everyone ever about his project.

However I can't deny that I think this book will tick all the right marks for some people. The premise is promising, the topic Important™, and the twists this story takes have the potential to break your heart and then squish it to mush. Frankly, I had hoped for more from this story but I don't belong into the "some people" group, which is fine, too. You win some, you lose some. 

Rating:

3 out of 5 stars, there's nothing else left to say.

Details:

Name: Dear Martin
Deutscher Titel: Dear Martin
Author: Nic Stone
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 224 
Where?: Amazon (English edition), Amazon (deutsche Ausgabe)

Comments

Post a Comment

Beliebte Posts.

All the Light We Cannot See

Image
All the Light We Cannot See  by Anthony Doerr Blurb: Marie-Laure  has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret. Werner is a German orphan, destined to labour in the same mine that claimed his father’s life, until he discovers a knack for engineering. His talent wins him a place at a brutal military academy, but his way out of obscurity is built on suffering. At the same time, far away in a walled city by the sea, an old man discovers new worlds without ever setting foot outside his home. But all around him, impending danger closes in. Review: What  is blindness? Where there should be a wall, her hands find nothing. Where there should be nothing, a table leg gouges her shin. Cars growl in the streets; leaves whisper in the sky; blood rustles through her inner ears. In the sta
Keep reading

An August Throwback

Image
Another  month passes, summer is coming to an end, September (finally!) hits us with some much needed rain and a direly wished for drop in temperature (or maybe that's just me). Soon, my semester is going to start so I tried to cram a lot of books into one month, which kinda worked well? So , in total I read 21.25 books, which includes 5 graphic novels/mangas, and listened to 3-and-something audiobooks. I don't know how many hours/minutes of audiobooks that makes a day but I do know that I read a total of 6478 pages or about 209 pages a day, which I'm very happy with. But let's wind back a bit and actually look at what it is that I've read in the month of August: Maus  by Art Spiegelman (4 Stars) A pretty fantastic Comic (or Graphic Novel? I guess because I read the bind-up it is a Graphic Novel but I believe it was published as Comics? I'm really not good at differentiating the two) about WWII. Touching and brutal, as most WW-stories tend to be
Keep reading

Goldene Zeiten

Image
Goldene Zeiten  von Daniel G. Spieker Zusammenfassung: Ein Mann kommt zum Arzt und leidet anscheinend an einer unbekannten Krankheit: Sein Körper wird langsam zu Gold. Rezension: Hat  sie tatsächlich Angst, dass ich ihr fremdgehe oder sucht sie nur nach einem Grund, um die Beziehung zu beenden. Mal schauen, wer zuerst einen findet. Zunächst  sollte ich wohl mit meiner Standard-Anmerkung beginnen: Ich habe nicht nur ein Rezensionsexemplar von diesem Buch vom Autor bekommen, besagter Autor ist auch ein Freund von mir. Ich werde trotzdem so ehrlich wie möglich sein. Gut , da das also erledigt wäre habe ich zwei Dinge zu sagen: 1. Goldene Zeiten  hat mir um einiges besser gefallen als Ein gutes Leben   2. zwischendurch hat mich die Geschichte ernsthaft genervt. Ich fange direkt mit dem schmerzhaften an, einfach um das hinter mich zu bringen: Die "Wissenschaft". Urgh, jedes Mal, wenn mir Logikfehler auffallen, brennen sie sich mir so richtig böse
Keep reading