Entertainment for the fashionista crowd.
Almost-15-year-old Harper thinks only of fashion until her dad sees her credit-card bill and packs her off to summer camp for a needed lifestyle change.
As the daughter of a suddenly rich music-video producer, Harper spends money without thought. She had expected to spend the summer in Cancun but instead finds herself in a creaky wooden cabin with fellow campers who don’t seem to like her much. No wonder, as Harper has carted in luggage full of hair products, expensive T-shirts and impractical shoes. She begins by losing a contest her cabin should have won, blowing out the fuses and using up all the hot water. She’s terrified of imaginary spiders and bears and remains resolutely nonathletic. One sympathetic girl, Lina, tries to help, but when Harper finally goes too far, even Lina quits talking to her. Desperate to gain friends, Harper plots to win a contest to get a popular rock star to shoot a video at the camp—a girl Harper secretly actually knows. Calonita keeps the narration bubbly and pitched just right for her pre- and early-teen audience, with plenty of comedy and a gentle message about superficiality. She makes Harper the butt of the jokes but always shows the girl’s sympathetic side so that readers can laugh with her rather than at her.
Entertainment for the fashionista crowd. (Chick lit. 10-15)Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-316-09115-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Poppy/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss.
It’s 1983, and 13-year-old Indian American Reha feels caught between two worlds.
Monday through Friday, she goes to a school where she stands out for not being White but where she has a weekday best friend, Rachel, and does English projects with potential crush Pete. On the weekends, she’s with her other best friend, Sunita (Sunny for short), at gatherings hosted by her Indian community. Reha feels frustrated that her parents refuse to acknowledge her Americanness and insist on raising her with Indian values and habits. Then, on the night of the middle school dance, her mother is admitted to the hospital, and Reha’s world is split in two again: this time, between hospital and home. Suddenly she must learn not just how to be both Indian and American, but also how to live with her mother’s leukemia diagnosis. The sections dealing with Reha’s immigrant identity rely on oft-told themes about the overprotectiveness of immigrant parents and lack the nuance found in later pages. Reha’s story of her evolving relationships with her parents, however, feels layered and real, and the scenes in which Reha must grapple with the possible loss of a parent are beautifully and sensitively rendered. The sophistication of the text makes it a valuable and thought-provoking read even for those older than the protagonist.
An intimate novel that beautifully confronts grief and loss. (Verse novel. 11-15)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-304742-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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