cbr16bingo Rage
Rage is an obvious choice once you read this book. The rage of the bullies. The main girl is being targeted because of an angry classmate. The rage of our main character against her classmate, her mother and the secrets, and of course, the rage of a teenager not being heard. Even the mother has rage, due to her assumptions on what a “good girl/daughter” should do, what she assumes her daughter is doing, and even perhaps to the man who is Piddy’s father. And there is the rage of the world, the system and even the silent rage some of us have in situations we cannot control.
I’ll start this review of the Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass: The Graphic Novel by Mel Valentine Vargas (adapter) and Meg Medina (original novel) with: I have a big bias about how the main theme was played out. The theme is bullying. And I was curious how realistic was this going to be presented, as the introduction by the author Medina had you thinking it would be realistic. But their reality and mine might differ. And it was mostly My Realistic, because there is a lot of victim blaming, and the bully (SPOILER) does not get exactly what she deserves. Yup, Piedad “Piddy” Sanchez is getting the short end of the stick. The bullied one is the one who pays for the bullying. However, it’s also realistic because of the adult women in Piddy’s life. There is mom, mom’s best friend/Piddy’s “aunt”/boss, and the neighbor woman (whom we do not see but hear about and meet her son).
I haven’t read the novel, but am curious how things were adapted. There are a lot of layers, some themes not as followed up as I would have liked, but well done for the most part. As an adult, I saw things that might not have been the main focus, but does fit in the overall idea of what is the cause of things. I won’t tell you a lot about the story, but the idea is that Piddy is being bullied by another girl in school and we see how she, the other students and her friends deal with it. There is also the fact Piddy has moved to a new school in the middle of September, she has the issues with her absent father, and a best friend issue to shape her reactions. There is violence (seen and heard) and multiple layers of identity. Of course, sexuality plays a role and even the mother’s biases can be considered “part of the problem” as well as how others see Piddy.
A lot is going on, but so many areas are not fully fleshed out that there honestly could be sequels, or a really long first novel. Because of this I would say the rating is a 3.75 and not a pure 4, as there were things I was hoping for that didn’t happen and/or things that happened that I didn’t think needed to happen. But overall an interesting read that unfortunately is very true even today.
