Beautifully, achingly cathartic.
High school senior Beth Claire knows what it’s like to lose someone you love.
Ever since her White father left, after her parents’ divorce, Beth has blamed her Chinese American mother for the end of their marriage. Striving not to repeat her mother’s mistakes, Beth does her best to be someone who is wanted and needed by those around her, especially her four closest friends, Brandon, Grace, Jason, and Sunny. She cherishes the closeness of their group and wants nothing more than for them all to stay tightly bonded through the year and even beyond graduation. Then Beth and Brandon accidentally witness Jason’s father assaulting him. Jason brushes off the violence, but Beth is devastated by the realization that she was unaware of her friend’s family situation. She becomes anxious when she and her friends are unable to devise a way to help Jason. The story is told retrospectively by an older Beth, whose tenderness toward her younger self contrasts with high school Beth’s critical and self-effacing demeanor. Her desire to be enough—competent enough, Chinese enough, accommodating enough—is described with the clarity of hindsight and vivid emotion, particularly when it comes to Jason, who was able to see past Beth’s carefully cultivated mildness to understand her in a way that the others do not. Brandon, Grace, Jason, and Sunny are all Asian American; Sunny is pansexual.
Beautifully, achingly cathartic. (resources) (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6821-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
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