A crackling, well-written yarn that expertly takes its spitfire characters through plenty of twists and turns.
After a horrific accident, one teenager and her friends begin to suspect that there is something very wrong in their quiet little town.
This first book in Ashta’s Ridgemore series finds Joss Bryson and her best friends—Hunt Fletcher, Layla Rafferty, Brady Rafferty, and Griffin Conway (on whom Joss has a devastating secret crush)—looking forward to their senior year of high school when the unthinkable happens: Brady suffers a fall from a balcony and dies…except he doesn’t. Despite being impaled on exposed rebar, Brady makes a miraculous recovery that surprises everyone—except for the friend group’s parents, who suddenly begin acting strangely and attempt to downplay Brady’s accident. Soon, Brady begins suffering from increasingly realistic nightmares about him and his friends growing up in a lab that begin to feel more like memories: “Everything about it feels familiar, like I’d know it again if I saw it. And, guys, when we were there, we didn’t call our parents Mom or Dad. We didn’t even know their names. We were their patients, their experiments, nothing more.” As Joss and her friends slowly uncover the truth, the arrival of a stranger (whose snake oil salesman persona practically screams, ‘I’m evil!’) threatens everything they have ever known and loved. Ashta’s natural-sounding dialogue thankfully never panders to the teenage cast. The various revelations strewn throughout the novel prove genuinely surprising, moving the plot forward in refreshingly organic ways. The author has created a loveably acerbic and witty narrator in Joss, whose sarcasm can’t hide a fierce love for and loyalty to her friends. From the novel’s opening line (“As I tipped back my beer, I strained to hear what Layla was saying to that jackass Rich over the noise of the party”), the narrative builds momentum as it moves toward vaguely sinister territory before the jaw-dropping cliffhanger of an ending, which will leave readers impatiently awaiting the next installment.
A crackling, well-written yarn that expertly takes its spitfire characters through plenty of twists and turns.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781039478527
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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