A tear-jerker about love, family, and learning to trust yourself.
Ada, a gifted teen artist, draws in order to help see the world around her.
But art won’t help her answer the questions she is struggling with the most: Does she love her boyfriend? Is she ready to have sex? How will she know, and who can she talk to about how she really feels? Ada feels stuck between pressure from her popular boyfriend, Leo, and warnings from her older and more experienced sister, Afton. To make matters worse, Ada senses growing tensions between her mother, a successful, and increasingly unavailable thoracic surgeon, and her stepfather, Pop, an emergency room nurse. When her mother whisks Ada and her two sisters off with her to a medical conference in Hawaii, leaving Pop behind, Ada begins to worry her family is falling apart. During the week away, Ada realizes that sex can change everything: your family, your relationships, and your sense of self. The novel centers a multiracial blended family—Ada, Afton, and their mom are White; Pop is Black; and the girls’ younger sister is biracial—with an ambitious, often absent mother and a father who acts as the central caretaker. These identities are named but not explored in the story. The emotionally well-developed central characters, smooth pacing, and frank and open discussions of sex, love, and relationships make this a satisfying read for teens and adults alike.
A tear-jerker about love, family, and learning to trust yourself. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-269319-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
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
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
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