An inspiring story of teenage resilience and how trauma need not be an insurmountable obstacle.
After her brother’s sudden death, a teen girl struggles to find a future for herself beyond her loss and trauma in Yamashiro’s debut YA novel.
“Two months ago, my brother, Jake, died,” confides Anela Lee, a 15-year-old of Italian and Polynesian descent whose already difficult and impoverished family life all but disintegrates in the wake of the tragedy. Before Jake’s death, Anela’s parents ignored her, putting their focus solely on her brother’s high school football career. Previously an exceptional student, Anela now isolates herself from friends and lets her grades swiftly decline. But Miss DeGracia, her social studies teacher, refuses to give up on her, and during a school trip to the State House she introduces Anela to the firebrand senator Nastasia Yen Strasberg. Strasberg offers the girl a job and a mentor, sharing stories of youthful hardship not unlike Anela’s own suffered by men who would become American presidents. These hard-luck tales of historical figures (in combination with the lessons in self-confidence that Jake instilled in her) guide Anela toward reforging relationships with lost friends and her contrite mother—and, ultimately, to an essay contest that offers a pathway to Harvard College. Yamashiro has long studied the childhood traumas of American presidents and relates many of these stories here through the character of Senator Strasberg in a seamless, organic manner, offering informative parallels to Anela’s journey. Equally impressive is the Boston-based community the book depicts, as many of Anela’s neighbors, peers, and mentors are revealed to also be silently carrying their own burdens. (These problems are presented as being equally relevant, even if some characters are more socially or financially privileged than the protagonist.) The story never portrays poverty in an exploitative way or as a moral failing. Instead, adversity is presented as something that, if not surrendered to, can shape an individual—an important lesson for readers of any age.
An inspiring story of teenage resilience and how trauma need not be an insurmountable obstacle.Pub Date: May 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798888242223
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A prototypical survival story: after an airplane crash, a 13-year-old city boy spends two months alone in the Canadian wilderness. In transit between his divorcing parents, Brian is the plane's only passenger. After casually showing him how to steer, the pilot has a heart attack and dies. In a breathtaking sequence, Brian maneuvers the plane for hours while he tries to think what to do, at last crashing as gently and levelly as he can manage into a lake. The plane sinks; all he has left is a hatchet, attached to his belt. His injuries prove painful but not fundamental. In time, he builds a shelter, experiments with berries, finds turtle eggs, starts a fire, makes a bow and arrow to catch fish and birds, and makes peace with the larger wildlife. He also battles despair and emerges more patient, prepared to learn from his mistakes—when a rogue moose attacks him and a fierce storm reminds him of his mortality, he's prepared to make repairs with philosophical persistence. His mixed feelings surprise him when the plane finally surfaces so that he can retrieve the survival pack; and then he's rescued. Plausible, taut, this is a spellbinding account. Paulsen's staccato, repetitive style conveys Brian's stress; his combination of third-person narrative with Brian's interior monologue pulls the reader into the story. Brian's angst over a terrible secret—he's seen his mother with another man—is undeveloped and doesn't contribute much, except as one item from his previous life that he sees in better perspective, as a result of his experience. High interest, not hard to read. A winner.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1987
ISBN: 1416925082
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bradbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987
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