A predictable and morally suspect love story.
Best friends clash as love is in the air.
Penelope has been best friends with Audrey and Ephraim since primary school, but things are getting complicated for these three amigos. Audrey has a new friend, Cherisse, who seems to exist solely to make Penelope miserable. And Eph is becoming increasingly withdrawn and distant. When Penelope starts dating moody pretty-boy Keats, things get really interesting—assuming it’s the first novel about teens readers have encountered. Events unfold from self-absorbed Penelope’s point of view, and readers will quickly grow tired of her “What about me?” attitude. Her lack of awareness is astounding, and the novel isn’t very self-aware either. When it’s revealed that Keats is manipulating Penelope, we’re meant to boo him, but when Eph does the same thing with another girl to deal with his feelings for Penelope, this John Hughes–worshipping white girl doesn’t even bat an eye. Keats is the most interesting character in the book, a brooding faux-intellectual with a self-worth complex and some serious issues with women, but readers are trapped inside Penelope’s head. These contemporary, apparently white teenagers rely oddly on pop-culture references from the mid-2000s. Mentions of bygone sci-fi fandoms like Buffy and Battlestar Galactica make the novel feel desperate, like a mom trying way too hard to talk like the cool kids.
A predictable and morally suspect love story. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3210-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.
Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.
Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play. (glossary) (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod.
Can a 17-year-old with her first girlfriend prevent real-life folks from discovering her online fandoms?
Cass is proudly queer, happily fat, and extremely secretive about being a fan who role-plays on Discord. Back in middle school, she had what she calls a gaming addiction, playing “The Sims” so much her parents had to take the game away. Now, turning to her role-play friends to cope with her fighting parents, she worries that people will judge her for her fannishness and online life. To be fair, her grades are suffering. And sure, maybe she’s missed a college application deadline. Also, her mom has suddenly left Minneapolis and moved to Maine to be with a man she met online. But on the other hand, Cass is finally dating her amazingly cute longtime crush, Taylor. Pansexual Taylor is a gamer, a little bit punk, White like Cass, and so, so great—but she still can’t help comparing her to Rowan, Cass’ online best friend and role-playing ship partner. But Rowan doesn’t want to be a dirty little secret and doesn’t see why Cass can’t be honest about this part of her life. The inevitable train wreck of her lies looms on the horizon for months in an overlong morality play building to the climax that includes tidy resolutions to all the character arcs that are quite heartwarming but, in the case of Cass’ estranged mother, narratively unearned.
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-324332-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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