Emotionally moving but underdeveloped.
Three queer best friends navigate love and relationships as they prepare to graduate high school.
Dawn Salcedo is spending her senior year completing her passion project, a documentary about queer love starring her best friends, Georgia and Edie, and other queer students at their school. When her entry makes it to the final round of the student category of the Austin Film Festival, Dawn has the chance to win a life-changing college scholarship that would allow her to pursue her dream of becoming a filmmaker, using her savings to pay for a caregiver for her sick father. Dawn, who is Latine and trans, also wants a relationship with a boy that is “normal and good and sweet.” Korean American Georgia adores her single mother, but their closeness is strained when her mom begins dating a man who has a disturbing side. Edie, who is Black, is trying to be the perfect daughter and hides from her religious parents the fact that she’s dating someone who’s nonbinary. The third-person narrative primarily focuses on Dawn, but Georgia’s and Edie’s stories unfold with complexity as well. Unfortunately, the novel feels too short for readers to fully get to know and become invested in the characters. This debut sincerely explores feelings that will resonate with readers, but many of the serious themes threaded through it would have benefitted greatly from more extensive and deeper treatment.
Emotionally moving but underdeveloped. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781646142705
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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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