Brilliant and multilayered; an absolute must-read.
The personal price of abortion bans.
Sixteen-year-old Ivy lives in Paris, Texas, an insular town with a fake Eiffel Tower and a culture of megachurches. She proudly works as an assistant manager at Euwing’s Drugs; she’s also a diligent student with plans for college who one day hopes to see the world. But when she gets pregnant, Ivy knows it could spell the end of her ambitions. People in her town are vitriolically antiabortion—and abortion in Texas is illegal after six weeks. She tells her boyfriend, Lorenzo, and he and Ivy’s mother organize a plan to drive to Oregon, where Ivy’s indomitable grandmother lives, to get an abortion. What ensues is both a poignant road trip through towns named after world cities so Ivy can, after a fashion, experience seeing the world and a searing reflection on the contrasting states of affairs around abortion access and community attitudes. Over the course of the trio’s journey, Ivy learns of other people’s abortion stories—and that one in four women gets one. This extraordinary story scrutinizes, through Ivy’s first-person, present-tense narrative, some of the historical and contemporary efforts to control women and the ways women have either been accessories to or have rebelled against them. The book offers a powerful argument for choice, bolstered by an exploration of women’s oppression and strength, told through a personal lens: It’s an individual story through which many readers will find universal commonalities. Main characters read white.
Brilliant and multilayered; an absolute must-read. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780593485545
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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