Heartfelt and meaty.
A little-more-than-a-year in the life.
Isa and Alex have a pretty typical meet-cute: Alex holds the door open for her on the subway so the train won’t leave without her—which is good, because she has a very important dance audition to get to. Alex, meanwhile, has regular baseball practices not just with his team, but with his demanding father, who played for the Yankees for a year and a half before a drug addiction set him back. They represent two very different New Yorks: Isa’s well-off family is downsizing after her financier father lost his job and is also trying to keep her mother’s and older brother’s mental illnesses from tearing the family apart. Alex attends public school in Washington Heights and splits his time between his divorced parents; his mother works in a nursing home. What Alex’s parents and friends don’t know is that he’s a poet. Soon he’s writing poems for Isa and leaving them on the train car where at first they just keep happening to run into each other before they eventually meet on purpose, away from their parents and clashing friend groups. Blonde Isa is half Cuban and half white American; Alex is Dominican. Code-switching and bilingualism are realistically placed in dialogue throughout the text, without italics to disrupt the reader’s flow. Anxieties over mental health, socio-economics, and police and gang violence effectively complicate and deepen the narrative.
Heartfelt and meaty. (Realistic fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3493-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
