A list of Cages by Robin Roe

I gulped this book down in a single day

To me, this book felt, especially before it takes a more positive turn in the denouement, like a comment on how the system can fail vulnerable young people. Like it should not have fallen to a 18 year old to see something was wrong. There were personal failures, like the older students should have reported the black-eye to someone. And it is established that the therapist suspects something, but doesn’t have any evidence to follow; she guilt trips Adam over this at the end. BUT it still should not have been down to a single teenager.

The book goes to quite a dark place, but I feel handles the trauma of those events (on both the victim and his loved ones) in a sensitive and real way. It doesn’t offer easy answers, just hope.

It is really a story about the value of kindness, how much a little unthinking kindness can heal, and how much people can hurt from going without it and without love. Kindness gives voice to those who are suffering (Julian is the obvious one, but look at the effects of his kindness on Charlie too). Its quite touching to think that Adam’s heroic quality is not courage or smarts or anything sexy, its quite simply kindness, in bucketfuls.

In its title the book also suggests that it is an exploration of the ways people trap themselves, build their own cages. Its a theme that didnt leap out at me as I was reading. Julian feels pretty trapped by circumstance (in a way he could not have escaped) and yet if he had spoken out…

A deeply uplifting book and a portrayal of teen life that resonated with my own experiences. Quite simply a joy to read.