Not recommended.
A mute teenager needs to find her voice in order to testify in her own self-defense.
At age 15, Melody is arrested for stabbing Asheville, North Carolina, high school sports sensation Troy Alexander. Melody, who’s in foster care, hasn’t spoken in two years and is court-ordered to attend daily sessions with a therapist. Melody eventually begins to respond through music. In alternating chapters that switch between third- and first-person, Melody tells stories from her past, starting with hunting rattlesnakes with her Cherokee father for her mother’s family to handle in church. After Mama dies from a snakebite, Daddy disappears. Melody ends up with a foster family where she’s repeatedly raped. At 14 she has semiconsensual sex with a boy who publicly humiliates her, and then, already mute, she’s raped again. While Melody endures horrific ordeals, shedding light on the plight of vulnerable young people, the nature of the writing does a disservice to this serious topic. The language used to describe the sexual assaults is likely to be severely triggering to sexual assault survivors. The jumbled timeline requires extraordinary patience from the reader, and the characterization mostly tells, not shows, rendering characters two-dimensional and making the ending overly pat. The musical verses don’t convey the strong emotion they’re clearly intended to, and elements of mountain folklore and magical realism feel misplaced. The book defaults to white, although Melody's mother and uncle are half-white and half-black, and colorism pervades the story. The Cherokee characters invoke stereotypes around Native mysticism.
Not recommended. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-944109-84-4
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Vesuvian Books
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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