Title: Sugar Kids
Author: Taslim Burkowicz
Publisher: Fernwood/Roseway Publishing
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 3/5 stars
Review:

Sugar Kids is a very special kind of book. It’s not the kind of book that I would usually go for, but this book was striking enough for me to pick it up. Both visually striking, and in the title. In choosing this book, I didn’t really pay a whole lot of attention to the synopsis, I knew it was about a girl living in Vancouver during the 90s, during a very prominent rave era. So I didn’t really know what to expect because this is about a time period that I didn’t grow up in, a city that I don’t live in, and a lifestyle that I’ve never experienced. Looking back, maybe I should have paid a bit more attention to what the book contained.

Let’s get into it. Because I have a lot of thoughts! Some context for the book is that our main character’s name is Baby, she’s a skater and an avid lover of Victorian gothic fiction, she’s also a former twin until her twin brother died when they were young. Her mom died as well, so now she’s living with her father who hates her. One day she meets Delilah, Delilah introduces her to drugs like ecstacy and rave parties, soon enough Baby falls in love with this new lifestyle she’s found.

Here’s what I do understand. This is a story of transformation. Showing someone like Baby at her lowest, going lower, and then eventually making her way up to the top. Grieving the loss of her mother, and by default the loss of her twin brother, she is at a very low point in her life. Then she finds Delilah, they go party and do drugs, and suddenly Baby is swept up in this new rave culture. As Baby goes through these lifestyle changes, there are multiple voices of reason in her life, like her friends and her guidance counsellor. But she doesn’t quite feel whole because her twin brother is gone. Let me explain this one, because it’s a lot more complex than you might think.

Baby’s twin brother Ravi died, but he didn’t quite die. With them being twins, Baby explains that she’s got a sort of split personality now. It’s like parts of Ravi have been absorbed within her, but he also comes to visit her in ghost form… It’s interesting how her relationship to Ravi was explored in this book, I didn’t really understand it. On the back of the book it says Baby is prone to hallucinations (only once she takes drugs, I believe), but it’s also said that Ravi isn’t really a hallucination because she’s absorbed him and they’ve both moulded into one person now. Very strange. Maybe I don’t understand because I’m not a twin and I’ve never hallucinated before.

Some things that I really didn’t like about this book was the sex scene between a minor and adult, and how lifestyle choices like these were portrayed. Although Baby eventually quits drugs, I didn’t feel that she was 100% a changed person. I also didn’t love how this book is not supposed to be a warning against this kind of lifestyle, but an homage to it. However, it doesn’t really promote rave culture or anything like that either, going off of all of Baby’s terrible experiences and multiple friends warning her against it.

Do I think that I’m the target audience for this book? In a way, yes, I do. As I mentioned, it’s a story of how a teen turned her life around. In the midst of questioning her identity and trying to put on an entirely new persona, to trying to erase a part of her that once meant the world to her, she slowly comes back to the things she once loved and valued. I think that’s a valuable lesson for anyone to learn. That being said, is this book 100% moral? No. A good majority of it was stuff that I didn’t enjoy reading about. I find that this book doesn’t exist for the purpose of entertainment, but to teach a lesson. So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that my favourite part of this story was the ending. The journey to get there was messy, but that’s what it’s supposed to be like.

I hope you enjoyed this book review, here’s the official synopsis from Fernwood:

Baby’s a skater girl trying to get through high school like everyone else. Except she loves Victorian gothic fiction, experiences violent tremors, and gets visits from the ghost of her twin. Ravi never really died for her, not like her mom did last year. When Baby gets kicked out of the house for not conforming with her Indo-Canadian family’s gender expectations, everything changes. Her new, glamorous friend Delilah introduces her to all-night parties held in exclusive clubs, abandoned warehouses, and magical cornfields — the underground rave scene in 1990s Vancouver.
But how will Baby fit into this new world?
Join Baby on her wild search for belonging through the landscape of acid house, complete with extraordinary music, retro fashion, and copious substance use. Alongside eccentric DJs, misanthropic skaters, and denim-clad ghosts, Baby explores her sexual and cultural identity. A coming-of-age tale, Sugar Kids is an homage to the subcultures animating the nineties.

That’s all for now, goodbye!