A List of Cages

(Sorry for the blurry book picture)

A List of Cages by Robin Roe, is quite frankly, for anyone out there looking for a quick but splendid read. The spotlight is interchanging on two terribly misunderstood main characters, Adam and Julian, who try to navigate their journey of the older-brother to younger-brother dynamic while also being threatened, interrogated, held hostage and at gunpoint. Julian’s parents had died quite early on, and due to his connection to Adam he was able to be adopted by his mom. Unfortunately, Russell, Julian’s uncle and your usual relative-we-all-hate, swoops in and declares that he has the right to take care of Julian through blood, then proceeds to abuse him. As Adam slowly figures out the truth and even more slowly figures out how to deal with it, Russell is getting increasingly more violent as a result of Julian rebelling against him more. These giant stars of violent potential orbit each other, until— crash, boom, bang, sneeze, they hit each other and explode in a supernova of fighting, child-seizing and the usual, a very, VERY melodramatic and anticlimactic ending to what could be classified as the most unfortunate event of the century. In a book sense. 

To be honest, I didn’t really get super into the book until it got to about the 100 page mark. It may just be me focusing more on plot than writing, but it was rather a bore. I mean cool, there are two kids who need therapy and one crazy uncle, but it's not like a circus show of two clowns bouncing on rubber balls while lettuce is being pelted at them. It definitely escalated a lot though as we got to learn more about Julian’s home situation, his previous foster home (Adam), and his uncle. This book would be good to read for anybody who likes taking off their uncomfortable shoes after 3 hours rather than immediately, just to feel the relief of not having to wear them anymore. In English, that means anyone who really, REALLY likes the feeling of waiting for a gift, of having the tension and anxiety and “oh no did they forget it was my birthday T-T”. 

After the whole learning about his uncle and his other foster home, it really did show the depressing side of the story. I think that's just a layer in the cake of emotions, the kind that is the thin layer of frosting smushed between two fat slabs of cake, the kind that really, doesn’t look like much but adds all the flavor in the world to the cake. The two fat slabs of emotional cake the reader got from the book, to me at least, were A. the anger towards the uncle and B. the hope that Adam would finally figure out Julian’s home problems. They were just there to be a combo for the layer of frosting. 

If that was the cake of the book, the sprinkle on the top would be the guns. Well, not guns. One gun. And the guy who owns it is a mentally depraved lunatic with family issues and heart problems. Of course, this is part of the supernova we mentioned before. Reading the book at the beginning, you really wouldn’t expect Russell to get so desperate. I mean, it's just a Julian. Since he’s off at a better home, go find another kid as a replacement (please don’t), or get therapy. But no, he STILL goes after Julian. I think it adds to the frosting in the cake; at first the reader just thinks Russell is this big meanie, but at the end he's so depraved it's sort of depressing. Of course, we all still hate him and he sucks, but the extent of his depravity is just sad. I mean not sad like crying in your pillow and waking up with red eyes, more sad like wondering, “How could organismal selection be so scuffed that a being like this made it through 3.7 billion years of evolution?” Ya know?

Of course, no matter how dumb we think human evolution is for creating a person like Russell or how sad we think he is, we also have to think about Julian. We’re lucky, we can just stand back, whisper among ourselves and judge him all we want. Julian has to face this sub-creature head on. From reading it, I think Julian really grows to understand the power dynamic between him and his uncle. At first, he thinks any disobedience from his part must be avoided and is all his fault. However, once he meets Adam, he comes to realize that his uncle can’t just take out a literal whip and beat him punish him for raising a point that disagrees with his own. He really grows to understand that not everything is his fault and that some things just aren’t right to do. 

In conclusion, please please please read A List of Cages. It’s a great book for all the reasons mentioned above, and I had a fun time reading it. I think this book had a lot of messages about, well, how ugly and beautiful human nature can be (cough Russell vs Adam, though that was a bit 1D because human nature is a spectrum of good and bad, not just “one guy’s good and the other’s bad”). However, if you really want to read something that's just – Bam, wahoo, sneeze, someone punched another guy and now their fighting and it's the match of the century and oh no, they’re now both hungry, this book isn’t for you. I hope you enjoyed reading my review; it was pretty fun to write.

With all the cake-filled metaphors in the world, 

Renee