Readers will root for these appealing, realistically flawed characters to find their respective happy futures.
A timely exploration of the line between idiosyncrasies and mental illness featuring two Australian teenagers.
Penny thinks she’s got her entire life sorted: She’s a standout on her high school’s swim and debate teams and is the school newspaper’s ace reporter. She owns her considerable ambition proudly and likes to keep things simple, gliding through life as smoothly and cleanly—without any messy peer relationships to gum up the works—as she does through the water. When she discovers a fellow student’s anonymous posts on a forum for love-shy men (so anxious about interactions with women that they avoid relationships altogether), Penny senses a hot story, pursuing it with a doggedness verging on obsession. Hyperdreamy Nick’s love-shyness is rooted in emotional abuse, phobias and deep-seated anxieties that nearly cripple him socially, and Penny determines to help him, Henry Higgins–style. This goes fairly well, but Nick is also unwittingly misogynistic, simultaneously idolizing and hating girls. When Penny finally calls him out on it, it’s a triumphant moment. Along the way, Nick’s behavior forces Penny to see that she is more isolated and friendship-craving than she’d like to admit. There is much to love about this book besides its plot; Penny’s relationships with other characters add both dimension and humor.
Readers will root for these appealing, realistically flawed characters to find their respective happy futures. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-74237-623-3
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
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