by Joyce Carol Oates ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003
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
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by Joyce Carol Oates ; edited by Greg Johnson
by Laura Nowlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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by Laura Nowlin
by Daniel Aleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021
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
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