Hits the mark as a page-turning romance.
After falling into a fake relationship with her crush while he’s in a coma, Gemma starts falling for his brooding brother.
Socially awkward Gemma Wells lives near the Arizona-Utah border where her father runs boat tours of Lake Powell. She finds herself in the middle of the summer’s wildest drama when she rescues high school hottie Beau Booker from drowning during a boating accident. Beau lands in a medically induced coma, and when a nurse mistakes Gemma for his girlfriend, the story takes on a life of its own. Too nervous to tell the truth, Gemma hopes for a potential real relationship with the boy of her dreams. Beau’s hospital stint forces Griff, his mysterious older brother, to return to town, and when he strikes up a friendship with Gemma, she wonders if she’s falling for him instead. Griff and Gemma’s growing relationship will have readers flying through pages, desperate to uncover what will happen when Beau eventually wakes up. Beyond the romance, McDowell shines a spotlight on mental health: Gemma’s social anxiety disorder is displayed in both her social interactions and inner emotional workings, and her friend Sofía opens up about her struggle with depression. While Gemma and Griff’s interactions and growing closeness are compelling and fully drawn, many of the side characters unfortunately fall flat. Main characters are presumed White; Sofía is cued as Latinx.
Hits the mark as a page-turning romance. (Romance. 12-17)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-74623-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.
Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.
Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play. (glossary) (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A meditation on a timely subject that never forgets to put its characters and their stories first
An Afghani-Australian teen named Mina earns a scholarship to a prestigious private school and meets Michael, whose family opposes allowing Muslim refugees and immigrants into the country.
Dual points of view are presented in this moving and intelligent contemporary novel set in Australia. Eleventh-grader Mina is smart and self-possessed—her mother and stepfather (her biological father was murdered in Afghanistan) have moved their business and home across Sydney in order for her to attend Victoria College. She’s determined to excel there, even though being surrounded by such privilege is a culture shock for her. When she meets white Michael, the two are drawn to each other even though his close-knit, activist family espouses a political viewpoint that, though they insist it is merely pragmatic, is unquestionably Islamophobic. Tackling hard topics head-on, Abdel-Fattah explores them fully and with nuance. True-to-life dialogue and realistic teen social dynamics both deepen the tension and provide levity. While Mina and Michael’s attraction seems at first unlikely, the pair’s warmth wins out, and readers will be swept up in their love story and will come away with a clearer understanding of how bias permeates the lives of those targeted by it.
A meditation on a timely subject that never forgets to put its characters and their stories first . (Fiction. 12-17)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-11866-7
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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