Overall, though, it’s very satisfying to see this moment in fandom and Internet-originating relationships so capably...
Two devoted members of an emotional cop drama’s fandom meet online and feel an instant bond.
Gena is a high-achieving senior at a ritzy boarding school, restless and yearning both socially and intellectually for college. Finn is 22, receiving a steady stream of job rejections and ambivalent about living with her boyfriend, Charlie. Finn writes Gena a note about a recent fic, Gena admires Finn’s fan art, and soon they’re in the throes of an intense friendship, emailing constantly, confiding details about their lives, and making plans to attend a fan convention together. At the convention, Gena is outed as a former child actor who starred in a popular sitcom with one of the leads of Up Below, and when Finn visits Gena at college, they both acknowledge their mutual attraction. Naturally, this intensity isn’t sustainable. The narrative is made up entirely of Gena’s fanfics, Finn’s art, emails, and text-message transcripts. Through it, readers learn that Gena’s parents fund a series of globe-trotting adventures using her sitcom earnings and that as she enters college, she’s no longer able to get treatment for the dangerous hallucinations that ended her acting career. Events come to a head after a tragic incident on the set of Up Below, and this concluding section is the novel’s one weak spot, vaguely petering out after a propulsive, assured beginning.
Overall, though, it’s very satisfying to see this moment in fandom and Internet-originating relationships so capably represented. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-3839-8
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Several yards short of a touchdown.
A transgender boy starting over at a new school falls hard for a popular cheerleader with a reputation to protect in this debut.
On the first day of senior year, transgender boy Pony locks eyes with cisgender cheerleader Georgia. They both have pasts they want to leave behind. No one at Hillcrest High knows that Pony is transgender, and he intends to keep it that way. Georgia’s last boyfriend shook her trust in boys, and now she’s determined to forget him. As mutual attraction draws them together, Pony and Georgia must decide what they are willing to risk for a relationship. Pony’s best friend, Max, who is also transgender, disapproves of Pony’s choice to live stealth; this disagreement leads to serious conflict in their relationship. Meanwhile, Georgia and Pony behave as if Pony’s trans identity was a secret he was lying to her about rather than private information for him to share of his own volition. The characters only arrive at a hopeful resolution after Pony pays high physical and emotional prices. McSmith places repeated emphasis on the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative when the characters discuss trans identities. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main characters are white.
Several yards short of a touchdown. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294317-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one.
Teens become astronauts in record time for an inaugural space mission.
After losing his family to “the greatest flood Rome has ever known,” skilled white Italian swimmer Leo Danieli would never have expected that in his darkest moment he would be drafted by the European Space Agency to attend the International Space Training Camp, where teens will train to terraform and colonize Jupiter’s moon Europa for human settlement. California native Naomi Ardalan, a second-generation Iranian-American, has also been chosen for her expertise in science and technology. During a period of violent climate change worldwide, Earth’s governments are desperate to draft teens for a space mission for which they have only a few weeks in which to prepare. Twenty-four teen finalists, many orphaned by cataclysmic natural disasters, have been chosen from all over the world to compete for this space colonization mission. Warnings come to Leo and Naomi that there is a more sinister aspect to this mission, especially after things go tragically awry with other candidates during the training. The relationship that develops between Naomi and Leo feels forced, as if their meeting necessitates speedy deployment of a romantic cliché. The use of predictable plot devices, along with the fundamentally ludicrous premise, undermines any believability that would make a reader invest in such an elaborate space journey.
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one. (Science fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-265894-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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