There’s a built-in audience for the London sisters’ adventures, but beneath all the glitter is a bunch of blah.
Hardworking sisters face glamorous romantic and professional challenges in Los Angeles.
Approachable fashionista-next-door video bloggers Sophia and Ava London have built an impressive reputation as savvy guides to fashion, accessories and personal grooming and are thrilled to be moving up in their shared career. An award naming the tightknit sisters Best Webstars of the Year leads to a licensing deal for their own makeup line—London Calling—with LuxeLife Cosmetics, and now the hottest men in Los Angeles are falling at their feet. Ava begins dating paparazzi-bait–turned–doting boyfriend Liam Carlson (but she continues to enjoy flirtatious banter with Dalton, a fellow volunteer at the local animal shelter). Meanwhile, Sophia, “boytoxing” after being blindsided by a terrible breakup, finds herself torn between wealthy smoothie Hunter Ralston and gorgeous Italian bartender-sculptor Giovanni. The Fowlers—who, like their protagonists, are beauty-and-fashion video bloggers—let their otherwise-effervescent modern fairy tale of sisterly love and self-actualization get bogged down in a dreary subplot of sibling separation anxiety and jealousy, basing it on the flimsiest of serial miscommunications and resolving it in a single paragraph. A last-chapter twist threatens the sisters’ reputation (and sets up a potential sequel), making the novel simply stop, rather than resolve.
There’s a built-in audience for the London sisters’ adventures, but beneath all the glitter is a bunch of blah. (Chick lit. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-00618-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Smoothly written and packed with (perhaps too many) challenging issues, Hoyle’s debut may feel a bit glib and predictable to...
A teenager with epilepsy who has recently lost her father to cancer overcomes the depression induced by grief and illness as she acclimates to attending public school for the first time in several years and finds a boyfriend.
Home-schooled and reluctant to engage with strangers, Emilie spends her spare time reading, cuddling with her therapy dog, Hitch, and playing board games with Cindy, her 8-year-old neighbor. Forced to begin classes at the local high school, Emilie is determined to remain aloof. A smart, creative girl named Ayla and a hot (and very nice) boy named Chatham befriend her, making it hard to stay distant and self-contained. Conflicts with her mother, who is just beginning to date, and concern about the potential embarrassment of having a seizure at school further complicate Emilie’s life. Miserable and self-absorbed, Emilie is exceedingly articulate. Indeed, her first-person narration sometimes sounds older than her years, particularly when describing her crush. Extended metaphors abound, most involving water. That’s logical given the Outer Banks setting and Emilie’s fears, but they slow the flow of the plot and contribute to the not entirely believable tone. Emilie seems to be white, and so does her world, aside from the occasional student of color.
Smoothly written and packed with (perhaps too many) challenging issues, Hoyle’s debut may feel a bit glib and predictable to some readers; others will swoon over the dreamy Chatham and root for Emilie to come out of her shell. (Romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-310-75851-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Blink
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Out of the vampire-hunting-ground frying pan into the freakish-religious-cult fire.
Gene, Sissy and the boys aren't free of the bloodsuckers yet. Their thrilling escape from the hunting compound at the conclusion of The Hunt (2012) brought them to a serendipitous boat; now they rocket down the river as the monstrously strong vampires pursue them by night. Will their quest lead them to the promised Land of Milk and Honey, Fruit and Sunshine? A hidden village of generous, well-fed, happily singing villagers seems to glow with all the hope of their promised paradise. But all is not well in this compound: Gene worries that Sissy is forced to stay apart from both the boys and the village's eerily cheerful and heavily pregnant girls. As further evidence of wrongness, the village's charismatic leader has "smooth, effeminate" skin, and he and his henchmen are "all blubber and liquid fat"—clear indicators of his untrustworthiness and the general air of sexual violence. The standard creepy-cult-compound chapter of many a dystopian series is enhanced by a fast-paced escape sequence, peppered with the grotesqueries that mark Fukuda's vampire mythos. A few mysteries are solved, only to reveal further puzzles, and it all wraps up with a cinematic cliffhanger. A lengthy interlude in creepsterville, with the promise of a return to gory thrills. (Science fiction. 14-16)
Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-00511-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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