A realistic, worthwhile look at dating violence and unhealthy relationships.
Grace, a high school junior, is the last one to see that the boy she fell in love with is no good for her.
A year into a relationship that started with her infatuation with Gavin, a senior who survived a suicide attempt, Grace wants desperately to get away from his increasingly controlling, jealous behavior. In a first-person narrative addressed to Gavin, Grace tries to work out how she got in over her head. Beginning with a melodramatic stream of consciousness, the novel turns into a well-crafted depiction of the processes that can lead an immature girl without the support of emotionally balanced adults into trouble. Grace’s mother plays the role of Contrite and Subservient Female to Grace’s stepfather, whom Grace calls The Giant. Despite warnings from her sister and close circle of friends, Grace can’t see that she’s heading the same way. Even when she recognizes that Gavin’s manipulating her, she’s taken in by his professed love for her, saying “it’s addictive, being someone’s everything. Letting them be yours. You’re the only drug I take.” She goes along with his rules about contact with other people and allows him to coerce her into sex, all the while feeling responsible for his emotional well-being. Grace’s ethnicity and looks are left vague, perhaps to underline the universality of emotional abuse, but the absence of markers to the contrary reinforces the white default.
A realistic, worthwhile look at dating violence and unhealthy relationships. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62779-772-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
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
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