Kind Hearts and Gentle Monsters treats the topic of conflicts in parent and child relationships. The potentially destructive relationship between Chris Pomeroy and her mother is presented realistically and with sensitivity, yet involves behavior that may be of concern to some readers, especially parents. Chris is presented as both having the desire and the need to rebel against parental authority, something common at her age even when the parental authority is not obsessively neurotic, as it is in Mrs. Pomeroy's case. That Chris is seen as the victim and her mother as a "monster" who is destroying her may strike readers as an oversimplified and unhealthy representation of family conflict. However, Yep provides a psychological depth and human sensitivity that goes far beyond this simplified perception. That Chris has come to see her relationship with her mother in black and white terms may be true at...