A pulse-pounding journey with characters whose dramas come to feel like the reader’s own.
LeBlanc’s YA coming-of-age adventure follows four teenagers, a father, and their guides braving the climb to summit Mount Everest.
The story opens 30,000 feet in the air as a small group of teenagers (and one father) fly to Nepal and the adventure of a lifetime: summitting the world’s tallest peak. The young group includes Jaya, the narrator, who has been training for years to climb Everest—she’s already reached the tallest peaks on four other continents. Amy is a high-achiever who is quite literally climbing mountains to please her parents. Their male counterparts, Galen and Logan, are a teenage runaway and the son of a vice cop, respectively. Each youngster brings not only their hiking gear, but also their own emotional baggage. Jaya and her father are attempting to fulfill a promise to the dead mother she never knew, and Amy needs to appease her own demanding parents. Galen and Logan are each without their fathers—Galen’s dad is a lifelong criminal and Logan’s dad was the cop who brought him down, later taking in the criminal’s son and making uneasy, unofficial siblings of the two boys, only to die in a climbing accident (a somewhat heavy-handed narrative development) a mere six weeks before the group leaves for Kathmandu and the Himalayas. At 17 years old, Jaya is trying to become the youngest non-Nepalese woman ever to reach the summit, but her goal is complicated by her feelings for their smoldering guide, Tenzing; the two quickly develop a mutual crush that must be kept secret from Jaya’s father, who insists they be all business. There is another challenger for the distinction Jaya seeks, a Brazilian girl just a few weeks older than Jaya, who—along with her father—throws money around to hire away all the sherpas and hoard the necessary materials to slow Jaya down. Though their teenage dramas feel all too serious to the group of kids, they must soon put them aside in order to survive the harrowing climb ahead, which promises danger from both the mountain and the other humans trying to conquer it.
LeBlanc employs her wealth of expertise regarding the Himalayas to satisfying effect in this novel; her depictions of the local characters and the remote villages they populate are rich with detail, from the local sherpa-brewed beer called “chang” to the terrifying daredevilry on display at the Lukla airport. While some of the plot threads bringing these teens together feel overly convenient—one strains to believe that Amy’s father agreed to all of this after a conversation with an old friend at a high school reunion—the interpersonal dynamics LeBlanc creates between them make up for the literary serendipity of their meeting, particularly the friendship between Amy and Jaya. Though they don’t always speak like teens (“As you know, [Logan’s father] took me in off the streets and treated me like a son. I can understand why Logan resents me,” Galen says), the kids’ emotional development does feel authentic as each crush or glance is treated as seriously as life and death—Jaya’s hunt for her first kiss dominates the opening 100 pages.
A pulse-pounding journey with characters whose dramas come to feel like the reader’s own.Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780978535377
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Ama Dablam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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