Last book in the Teddies Saga. Definitely just as scary and disturbing as the previous books, in fact I’d say some of the body horror is worse. The teddies finally get some answers to their burning questions, but they have to face a lot more challenges. Their first discovery is that Proto, the original teddy, isn’t the great hero they had once imagined. That the reasons all the humans hate them is very reasonable, and nothing they can change. They want more answers, and justice, but have to travel across the city again, make their way through a shouting crowd of protestors who want to destroy them, and literally keep themselves from falling apart. Some new characters are introduced- a few kids involved in the protest- and while it looks at first like one of them will be the teddies’ enemy, he ends up helping them out. They get far more explanations about their origins than they had ever dreamed, and some of it is disappointing, but also realistic. The teddies have changed through all they’ve faced, and this last revelation about how the best of people can let you down, or make wrong choices, or change over the years and not always for the better, is quite a blow. They are different now- can they still be the kind of teddies that comfort children? or is their role just to comfort each other. I found some of the conclusions in this story really satisfying- though for me it was a slog to get through all the protest stuff and the legal motions against the Suit guy. It seemed like a big theme of this story was about the corruption of corporations, the dangerous flaws in products when companies use cheap materials and cut corners to make the biggest profit. But there’s also the strong message of friendship and facing difficulties together and the pain of growing up and facing all the nastiness in the world. And even though some of the things they learned were disappointing, they were able to forgive some of the key players in the end, for mistakes they had made long ago in the past. Which had their reasons back then, too. The explanation for the Voice the teddy leader kept hearing counseling him wasn’t what I expected. It made sense, and was fitting to the story, but I found it a bit of a disappointment and I’m not sure why!
Borrowed from the public library.
