Stifled by the weight of its own good intentions, the story struggles to maintain a human spark.
Country music, Southern food, and teenage dreaming populate this earnest debut.
Emmett Maguire knows exactly who he wants to be, and that’s country music’s biggest gay star. Luke Barnes knows who he wants to be, too, but he’s not about to tell anyone about it. When, at 17, both boys find themselves working summer jobs at Wanda World—a fictional, Dollywood-esque amusement park in Tennessee owned by country star Wanda Jean Stubbs—their very different lives collide. Romance blooms as the pair struggle under the burden of multiple secrets. No more can Luke bring himself to come out than tell his mother, who has multiple sclerosis, that the theme park is keeping food on their family table: A messy history ties Wanda Jean to his grandmother, and the job feels like a betrayal. As more of this history comes to light, the novel teeters on the edge of drama but ultimately veers away from exploring this tension. In alternating first-person point of view chapters, Luke and Emmett parse their tumultuous summer with a pinch too much editorializing to ring true. Could-be-complex mosaics of character development end up more paint-by-numbers. The leading characters are White; Emmett’s new friends and co-workers, one Chinese American and one Black, embody other country music outliers as they fight alongside him for representation.
Stifled by the weight of its own good intentions, the story struggles to maintain a human spark. (Romance. 13-17)Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308565-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst.
When a calamitous drought overtakes southern California, a group of teens must struggle to keep their lives and their humanity in this father-son collaboration.
When the Tap-Out hits and the state’s entire water supply runs dry, 16-year-old Alyssa Morrow and her little brother, Garrett, ration their Gatorade and try to be optimistic. That is, until their parents disappear, leaving them completely alone. Their neighbor Kelton McCracken was born into a survivalist family, but what use is that when it’s his family he has to survive? Kelton is determined to help Alyssa and Garrett, but with desperation comes danger, and he must lead them and two volatile new acquaintances on a perilous trek to safety and water. Occasionally interrupted by “snapshots” of perspectives outside the main plot, the narrative’s intensity steadily rises as self-interest turns deadly and friends turn on each other. No one does doom like Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead, 2018, etc.)—the breathtakingly jagged brink of apocalypse is only overshadowed by the sense that his dystopias lie just below the surface of readers’ fragile reality, a few thoughtless actions away. He and his debut novelist son have crafted a world of dark thirst and fiery desperation, which, despite the tendrils of hope that thread through the conclusion, feels alarmingly near to our future. There is an absence of racial markers, leaving characters’ identities open.
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst. (Thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8196-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod.
Can a 17-year-old with her first girlfriend prevent real-life folks from discovering her online fandoms?
Cass is proudly queer, happily fat, and extremely secretive about being a fan who role-plays on Discord. Back in middle school, she had what she calls a gaming addiction, playing “The Sims” so much her parents had to take the game away. Now, turning to her role-play friends to cope with her fighting parents, she worries that people will judge her for her fannishness and online life. To be fair, her grades are suffering. And sure, maybe she’s missed a college application deadline. Also, her mom has suddenly left Minneapolis and moved to Maine to be with a man she met online. But on the other hand, Cass is finally dating her amazingly cute longtime crush, Taylor. Pansexual Taylor is a gamer, a little bit punk, White like Cass, and so, so great—but she still can’t help comparing her to Rowan, Cass’ online best friend and role-playing ship partner. But Rowan doesn’t want to be a dirty little secret and doesn’t see why Cass can’t be honest about this part of her life. The inevitable train wreck of her lies looms on the horizon for months in an overlong morality play building to the climax that includes tidy resolutions to all the character arcs that are quite heartwarming but, in the case of Cass’ estranged mother, narratively unearned.
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-324332-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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