A story of the lies we tell ourselves and other people even when the truth would be easier and more rewarding.
When the rest of your friends have thrilling summer plans, it’s hard to get excited about spending your summer working at a zip-line company—especially when heights make you nervous.
To make things worse, when curly-haired Olivia, who struggles with the occasional pimple, shows up for her first day of work, she’s shocked to find that Jake, one of her co-workers, is the same person she knows as Elm, whom she’s been chatting with online for months under the name Carrie (from her favorite horror movie). To make it even more awkward, brown-eyed, glasses-wearing Jake doesn’t realize that Olivia is Carrie, because the picture she sent him was actually of her beautiful, blonde best friend, Katie. Instead of clearing up the confusion immediately, Olivia keeps lying even as she starts to fall for the guy, creating a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac plot that relies heavily on coincidence and internal angst. Konen (Love and Other Train Wrecks, 2018, etc.) offers up friendly-but-steamy moments of romance that are shining points in an otherwise tired plot. Olivia’s passivity is exhausting, as she seems unable to move forward without continual emotional boosts from friends, love interest, and family, whether she’s going for a zip-line ride, writing her screenplay, or deciding to continue with the identity farce. Major characters are assumed white.
A story of the lies we tell ourselves and other people even when the truth would be easier and more rewarding. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3489-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Several yards short of a touchdown.
A transgender boy starting over at a new school falls hard for a popular cheerleader with a reputation to protect in this debut.
On the first day of senior year, transgender boy Pony locks eyes with cisgender cheerleader Georgia. They both have pasts they want to leave behind. No one at Hillcrest High knows that Pony is transgender, and he intends to keep it that way. Georgia’s last boyfriend shook her trust in boys, and now she’s determined to forget him. As mutual attraction draws them together, Pony and Georgia must decide what they are willing to risk for a relationship. Pony’s best friend, Max, who is also transgender, disapproves of Pony’s choice to live stealth; this disagreement leads to serious conflict in their relationship. Meanwhile, Georgia and Pony behave as if Pony’s trans identity was a secret he was lying to her about rather than private information for him to share of his own volition. The characters only arrive at a hopeful resolution after Pony pays high physical and emotional prices. McSmith places repeated emphasis on the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative when the characters discuss trans identities. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main characters are white.
Several yards short of a touchdown. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294317-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one.
Teens become astronauts in record time for an inaugural space mission.
After losing his family to “the greatest flood Rome has ever known,” skilled white Italian swimmer Leo Danieli would never have expected that in his darkest moment he would be drafted by the European Space Agency to attend the International Space Training Camp, where teens will train to terraform and colonize Jupiter’s moon Europa for human settlement. California native Naomi Ardalan, a second-generation Iranian-American, has also been chosen for her expertise in science and technology. During a period of violent climate change worldwide, Earth’s governments are desperate to draft teens for a space mission for which they have only a few weeks in which to prepare. Twenty-four teen finalists, many orphaned by cataclysmic natural disasters, have been chosen from all over the world to compete for this space colonization mission. Warnings come to Leo and Naomi that there is a more sinister aspect to this mission, especially after things go tragically awry with other candidates during the training. The relationship that develops between Naomi and Leo feels forced, as if their meeting necessitates speedy deployment of a romantic cliché. The use of predictable plot devices, along with the fundamentally ludicrous premise, undermines any believability that would make a reader invest in such an elaborate space journey.
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one. (Science fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-265894-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
© 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.
