Will grip readers and provoke empathy
A Salvadoran teen joins a grief transference experiment in exchange for asylum for herself and her family.
Fearing their asylum request will be denied and they’ll be deported back to a life threatened by gang violence, 17-year-old Marisol Morales escapes with her 12-year-old sister, Gabi, from an immigration detention center. The sisters attempt to trek to New York in search of Mrs. Rosen, an American woman their mother used to work for back in El Salvador. When discovered by Indranie Patel, an Indian immigrant working for the government, Marisol agrees to join a trial that will guarantee her and her family approval for their asylum applications. The catch? She must become a “grief keeper” for people with PTSD. Her first task is to convince Rey, the white girl for whom she’s supposed to be a grief keeper (and who offers her a second chance at love), to wear the grief-transmitting cuff. Flashbacks provide snippets of the sisters’ lives in El Salvador and the anti–LGBTQ environment they escaped and slowly chip away at the true reason for their flight. In her debut, Villasante captures the pressures of internalized racism in immigrants, for example, as Marisol worries people believe her to be stupid because she doesn’t have perfect command of English. However, shifting the focus from loss and the complexities of immigration to the romantic relationship risks implying that relationships can remove grief.
Will grip readers and provoke empathy . (Science fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51402-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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