A page-turning coming-of-age tale that offers an offbeat spin on the YA suspense genre.
In author Vincent’s debut, a Midwestern teenager learns that everything she’s been told about her childhood is a lie.
Bright, outgoing, and athletic Loretta “Retta” Brooks, a 15-year-old girl in small-town Buckley, Iowa, has been home-schooled her whole life and has spent a lot of time alone. Her mother has long told her that they were the sole survivors of a van accident that killed Retta’s father and all four of her grandparents. Now, as the teen enters public high school, she still feels the effects of her mom’s constant hovering, as the latter works in the school lunchroom. Her mother explains that she’s preoccupied with Retta’s safety and security because of the long-ago accident. But when Retta later tries to secure a copy of her birth certificate from their native Nebraska, only to come up empty-handed, she starts to doubt the murky car-crash account. She soon realizes that her mother has been feeding her a false narrative. A shocking criminal act makes Retta call a phone number that her mother made her memorize for emergencies, which sends her into a Midwest underground of protective strangers and safe houses. There are certainly elements of this story that call to mind the psychological thrillers of Mary Higgins Clark, but Vincent intriguingly chooses to focus on the young protagonist’s feelings of anger, grief, rebellion, and helpless bewilderment when she finds out that nothing she thought she knew is true—including her own name. (Readers may also recall Robert Cormier’s 1977 YA mainstay I Am the Cheese.) The story occasionally pairs Retta with Jack, a potential boyfriend from a Punjabi immigrant household whose members deal with their own issues of control and conservatism; this adds an intriguing multicultural note to the story and deepens its exploration of themes of identity. The author also appends an essay to her gripping story, addressing domestic violence and the personal and social pathologies it breeds.
A page-turning coming-of-age tale that offers an offbeat spin on the YA suspense genre.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5092-2903-1
Page Count: 324
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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