Saturday Review: “Mari and Jase’s Story: Honesty, Acceptance, and yes, Some Kissing”
a review by Jessica L. Allee of Kati Gardner Finding Balance (2020) in NCLR Online Winter 2024
Our 2024 Winter Online issue is coming very soon!
In the final feature review of this issue, we revisit characters from a previous book, not something we get to do very often. Allee reminds us, “Gardner tells a contemporary love story about Mari Manos and Jase Ellison, two teenage cancer survivors she introduced in her debut novel, Brave Enough.”
YA fiction serves an increasingly important role in our culture by deliberately showing how to help others. “In her novel, Gardner illuminates the lengths to which people with disabilities must go to navigate a broken system. Even tasks that are easy for other students, such as retrieving items from one’s locker and getting on and off the bus are difficult for Mari because accommodations do not exist for her. Additionally, the school does not provide enough time for students like Mari to get from class to class;
she must leave one class early to get to the next class on time, thereby missing out on instruction that other students receive.” As disability rights advocates say, accommodations help everyone. Students who read this book, whether disabled themselves or not, can use it to advocate for better conditions in their own schools.
We look forward to the rest of the reviews in this issue and more “Disability (in) NC Literature” feature reviews in other 2024 issues!
Read the entire review and buy the book from your local independent bookstore.
