Compelling and relevant.
Three Australian girls deal with devastating attacks on a gossip website.
Clem is struggling with her self-esteem, her weight, and her role on the swim team. Kate tries to find the courage to audition for an overseas music program while cramming for an academic scholarship exam that would allow her to remain at her expensive boarding school. Ady just wants everything to go back to normal and for her home life to stop spiraling out of control. When the three are grouped together in a wellness class, they at first are none too enthused. Worse, they’ve all been targeted by the shady, misogynistic gossip site PSST. Bisexual Ady’s father struggles with cocaine addiction, Clem is plus size, and Kate comes from a poorer family than her classmates. Each of their narratives deals with emotionally intense subjects, including extreme misogyny, body shaming, unhealthy relationships, and addiction. Sixteen-year-old Clem’s storyline focuses on thinking you are more of an adult than you really are as she gets into uncomfortable situations with her 19-year-old boyfriend. Talented cellist Kate’s is centered around the idea of expectations, both her expectations of others and their expectations of her. Ady’s deals with having your foundations taken away and discovering who you really are. These three disparate narratives, told through alternating first-person chapters interspersed with school assignments and excerpts from PSST, form a solid braid, perfectly reflecting the nature of the bond the girls forge. Main characters read as White.
Compelling and relevant. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4549-3827-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Sterling Teen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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