Hello you gorgeous individuals, it's Kav here and today I'm going to be talking
about Chaotic Good by Whitney Gardner. I was lucky enough to achieve an ARC of
this novel from the publishing team at Knopf, so thank you all so much for
sending me an ARC of this novel to review. Chaotic Good is a young-adult
contemporary novel featuring a main character, Cameron, who is essentially a
geeky girl who loves cosplaying, but because of the fact that she's a girl
she does not get treated well, so she starts dressing up as a boy to fit in
more with the geeky crowd and essentially some complications ensure
from that. I gave this novel a four out of five stars,
so overall I did really enjoy it with a few minor details that I did not like
and because this is an ARC review it will be spoiler free, so feel free to
stick around so I can tell you all my different thoughts about this novel. And
without further ado, let's get started.
So this is Whitney Gardner's sophomore novel. She wrote one novel before this, You're
Welcome Universe, and I have read both of them. Something I have noticed in reading
these two novels is that she is one of the most unique young-adult contemporary
authors out there. I think that a lot of times, in contemporary especially, things
can tend to get repetitive and cliche, and of course some cliches are great
and lovely but there are some that tend to be overused at times, and I think
she's brilliant at coming up with unique premises for her novels and she always
finds some sort of interesting angle to take her novel at which is something I
don't see in a lot of authors and that's definitely my favorite aspect of her
work. They are genuinely unlike any other novels you read and I say that in the best
way possible. Chaotic Good was just another example of that, so I very much
enjoyed the uniqueness of it. Something she also does really well is incorporate
diversity in it, but incorporate it in a way where it doesn't seem
like she was trying to check a box off - its, like, casual diversity. I think that
that's something more authors really need to do, so it's something I really
appreciate that she does in her novels, so that's just another aspect of her
work overall that I enjoy, but now I'm going to be getting more into details
with this novel. From following Whitney Gardner on Twitter, it is very obvious to
me that she is someone who loves Dungeons & Dragons and she is someone
who is geeky herself, so the geekiness of this novel was done with so much rawness
and authenticity because I could see the real feelings Whitney had come out in
this novel. It was real because it's something that the author herself knew
about, those aspects of the novel were real and I loved seeing that in this
novel. I loved seeing something so raw and genuine in this novel in the
geekiness of it because it really was something that the author felt as well
as the main character. And this novel, you know, celebrates geekiness, but it also
battles the sexism that comes with it - being a girl who likes cosplaying and
who likes games and stuff - it really battles the sexism with that. That
is something I've heard of before. I think that in itself can be trope-y if
done a certain way, but the way that the author tackled it in this novel - she
tackled it with this kind of raw authenticity and I just felt like it was
done in a way I had never really seen before because whereas that premise in
itself on its own is something I have heard of, she takes it apart in a very,
very different manner and I very much enjoyed reading about that because I
think it's something that's so important because it still baffles me that to this
day people still can't get over the fact that girls can like video games or they
can like cosplaying or whatever. It's the same as when guys or people of other
genders do, so no matter what gender you are, you can like cosplaying and
geekiness and everything that comes with it and this novel
essentially tells you that. It tells you that no matter your gender, you can love
this stuff and I love the message that it sends in that way.
Furthermore, the relationship dynamics in this novel were brilliant. The main
character's best friend is essentially her twin brother who, by the way, is gay
and he and his love interest are so adorable in this novel. I was like crying
reading about him having a crush on this guy, it was so cute and was by far one of
my favorite aspects of the novel. But going back to the relationship dynamics -
her best friend is essentially her twin brother, so both her twin brother and her
parents play a huge part in this novel, plus the friends she makes when she
dresses up as a boy, plus the friends she had made before that, and also the
adorable romance she herself is in because that was also so cute. Both the
romances in this novel are absolutely adorable and I was like crying reading
that fluff because it was so pure and good. All of these different relationship
dynamics are touched on and done so well. I really, really love the focus on family.
I think that that is something that is lacking in a lot of young-adult work. And
even more so, the friendship dynamics were also done well. We got to see her
make a new friend because she had recently moved before the novel started
and I really enjoyed seeing that because the dynamic was explored so well and the
way that friendship was formed and the multiple friendships she made in this
novel were just so brilliant and well done and I absolutely adored it. Now
there is one more positive that I do want to touch on, but also wanna give a
trigger warning for. This novel deals very heavily with themes of
cyberbullying and doxxing and suicide. Please be aware of that before going
into this novel because they are very, very prevalent in this book. I really
liked how that was handled for the most part because cyberbullying and that
stuff is a very, very real in society today and it's unfortunate that it is,
but I think that by having more conversations about it by having novels
such as these out in the world, it will help lessen that I hope, that's my hope.
So I really think that the author handled that topic with care and really
knew how to tackle it in a way that was respectful and that was authentic, so I
really, really enjoyed how that was done because I think this novel really
balanced out fluffiness, cuteness, the celebration of geekiness with this very
important topic that we do need to discuss more of while tying that into
sexism, so it had these very, very two important topics along with these other
very cute and fun-loving, light-hearted topics. Now, as I did give
this novel a four out of five stars, there were a few parts of it that I
wasn't a huge fan of. When tackling a topic like 'cross-dressing,' I really don't
like that term because it's very ciscentric, but I'm using it for lack of a
better one, but when tackling topics such as that you have to be very careful with
how you tackle it because it can come across as very ciscentic. Most of
mainstream media is ciscentric, but it's much more obvious in books that
tackle these sort of topics and there was no real acknowledgement of
non-binary people or people who fall outside the gender binary and I really
wish that had been done. It didn't even have to be anything in-depth, just an
acknowledgement of non-binary people would have really sufficed, but I felt
like because of the theme this novel handled and then not acknowledging
people outside of the gender binary, it just really made it ciscentric, so I
wish that hadn't been done because I think that that could have been handled
better and with more care. The other "complaint" I have about it isn't as big as
that one, it's more so just the ending of this novel. This is a very short book - the
ARC is about 250 pages - so I really think that the ending could have been a little
bit longer honestly. And generally, I never say that about books, but I felt
like there was so much going on in this book and about 3/4 into it we reach the
real conflict of this novel that I think was handled so well, but I felt like the
final conclusion fell a little bit flat. It just seemed like everything was
wrapped up really quickly with a little pretty bow and there was no real
resolution, especially for the cyberbullying. I just wish there had been
more of a resolution with that. Obviously that is not a huge complaint, I am very
pleased overall with this novel. As I mentioned at the very beginning of this
video, Whitney Gardner is an extremely talented
author. I genuinely think she is one of the most talented young-adult authors
out there, so overall I do think that I would recommend this novel, but I would
keep in mind the fact that it is somewhat ciscentric. So that essentially
concludes all my thoughts on this novel. I will leave my Goodreads review of this
novel in the description below if you'd like to check that out, as well as links
to pre-order this book - it is out on March 13th - but do be aware of the
trigger warnings I gave. And that's about it for this video. Thank you all so much
for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please give it a like and
subscribe because that stuff makes me happy. And go ahead and comment down
below whether or not you will be picking up this novel. And as usual, all of my
social media and my Goodreads will be in the description below if you'd like to
follow me anywhere else. Thank you all so much for watching, I hope you're having
a lovely day or night wherever you are, please remember you're beautiful and you deserve
the world and I will see you soon for a brand new video. Goodbye!
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