Author- Cathrine O'Donoghue
All Our Hidden Gifts follows the main character, Maeve Chambers, a young teenage girl who struggles with feelings of belonging and a deep pit of guilt after breaking up with her long-time best friend, Lily. After finding a set of tarot cards, Maeve quickly finds her niche at school. However, after a tarot reading for Lily goes wrong and she subsequently disappears, Maeve must rely on her new-found gift to bring Lily home.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and there are many elements of the narrative that I believe are excellently crafted. For example, O’Donohue does a wonderful job of weaving the main themes of the book throughout the narrative as well as using the issues our characters face as stepping stones to explore deeply personal and complex issues. Another aspect of the book I appreciated is that you can tell that the characters are crafted with empathy and love. I mean that the characters read as though they are entire people and O'Donoghue takes us through the path of seeing people as people. And I know that sentiment sounds contrived but I challenge you to think, do you see everybody that you interact with as a full person with full thoughts who has their own experiences and who is moving through their own life? That there is a collection of events and emotions that have culminated in the creation of an entire person? Well, O’Donohue challenges both the main character and the reader to examine their preconceived notions and to instead connect with the innate humanity present within us.
Furthermore, one of the main messages of this story is about not only finding your hidden gift but also how the collection of different people with their hidden gifts can create magic to change your material life and circumstances. Through the narrative Catherine O’Donohue illuminates the power of radical empathy and shows us that it is the baseline of any real and deep human connection; and on the back of human connection, only then can you build a society or community that is truly sustainable and progressive. I think that the fact that O’Donohue does this in a contemporary setting and she is trying to appeal to a young audience that desperately needs to hear this is beautiful to me.
While there are many aspects of the narrative that I appreciated there are other elements within the story that I wish were more developed. For example, the narrative discusses many issues faced by members of minority communities such as coming out, racism, and to an extent classism as well. After finishing the book I was left a little disheartened because many of these issues are mentioned and discussed briefly but they are not as fleshed out as I assumed they would be when I started the book. The story is very intersectional and there is a lot of talk about having empathy to understand other people's perspectives and how they navigate the world as well as the profound otherness that you feel as a minority but I feel like this book doesn't fully develop those ideas. However, I am hoping that because this is only the first book of a series it is possible that the other books will continue to build on the foundation this narrative created and we will eventually get to what I was hoping for in this book.
However, with that being said, I did like how inclusive this book was and because it is set in modern times, a lot of the issues that our characters are going through are so palpable that it's impossible not to root for these characters. Furthermore, it is almost impossible not to see yourself and your struggle reflected in these teenagers, whether that struggle is living in a society that you thought was progressive but you are now seeing the backlash of that progress, or not being able to relate to your peers and the social toll that it takes on you, whether the otherness is not having the full ability to express yourself in the way that you want to, especially at home, or whether the otherness is simply feeling like you have to adhere to certain social systems even to the detriment of yourself and others you will be able to find yourself in these characters. I think that this quality is especially important if you are young and queer because while not all of the characters are queer and while not all of the characters are gender queer the struggles the characters are going through are so relatable on a personal level that you can see yourself in everyone.
When I picked up this book, I was expecting a more fantastical setting, not necessarily like Harry Potter, but I was expecting to be taken out of my world and placed somewhere new. While the book leans on the experience of a 16-year-old teenager in contemporary Ireland, which is a new world to me, most of the book takes place in the real world, and many of the issues within the story are quite close to those we are facing at this current moment. This is not a fantasy world nor is it an escape from reality, this story is instead a radical depiction of the innate power of being human and exercising empathy.
Seeing yourself is so important, especially for the LGBTQ+ community who continue to have to battle to be seen and heard. Please remember your voice matter. If you need to talk the LGBT National Hotline (888-843-4564) is here for you.
