Keep expectations in check, sit back and enjoy Paris (the most memorable character) vicariously.
Lightweight but amusing, the Unbound Trilogy’s conclusion takes on Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, The Phantom of the Opera, and its myriad variations.
Emma and Elise, now students at a Paris boarding school, dive into French culture with gusto while Gray, Emma’s longtime boyfriend, trains as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer stateside. When musical friends Owen and Flynn visit, the girls solicit their help writing an opera libretto based on Leroux’s tale. Meanwhile, Emma is drawn into another mysterious literary world whose characters may be iterations of those in Emma’s real life. Gray is presumed drowned during a valiant rescue, but a flickering candle in her room’s mirror leads Emma to Gray, now an embittered, wraithlike creature who insists his life depends on her allegiance. Is he really alive, and if so, is this what he’s become? The relationship between the school’s headmistress and its strange caretaker follows a parallel track. Emma’s Paris life and creepy adventures in the mirror are vivid and thrilling, but there’s not enough substance beneath the overwrought melodrama to support Emma’s sturdy coming-of-age complexity. The pivotal character is the phantom, not his protégée, Christine/Emma. His choices, his fate—not hers—matter most, so that tracking the original inevitably renders Emma a bystander in her own story.
Keep expectations in check, sit back and enjoy Paris (the most memorable character) vicariously. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 12 & up)Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7582-6950-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Kteen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
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
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
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