Twelve stories, twelve girls—each different from the next, each pitting its teen protagonist against age to define herself. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” Connie, secure in her 15-year-old sexuality finds herself simultaneously drawn to and repelled by the mysterious and older Arnold Friend. Looking back from age, Claire recalls the world-altering moment she discovered the treachery of assumptions of safety (“Why Don’t You Come Live with Me It’s Time”). A popular girl frees herself from popularity just in time for adulthood in “Life After High School.” In all the stories, Oates (Big Mouth and Ugly Girl, 2002, etc.) explores the twin impulses of attraction and repulsion teens experience when contemplating age and its immediacy. Even as the individual stories examine the fluidity and relative nature of age, as a collection, they move across time and space, setting themselves both in a mid-20th-century past that is free from nostalgia and in a coolly hip present. Structurally, the most elliptical and untraditionally told stories open the collection, challenging readers with shifting perspectives, unreliable narrators, and a variety of narrative styles not frequently seen in teen literature. In doing so, this collection demands total engagement with the text; by denying readers easy identification with character and plot, it demands that readers encounter its ideas on its own terms. This challenging beginning has the effect of making some of the later, more straightforwardly told stories seem anticlimactic and almost pedestrian, as with a rather ordinary story of a girl’s first “Visit” to her grandmother in an Alzheimer’s-care facility. It will also have the effect of turning off less sophisticated and determined readers, but those who stay with the collection will be rewarded by haunting images, masterfully controlled language, the occasional light touch of fantasy, and no easy lessons. (Short stories. YA)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-001217-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
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
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
© Copyright 2025 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.
