A decade on, as relevant as ever and likely to capture the hearts of even more readers.
Vargas adapts Medina’s Pura Belpré Award winner into graphic-novel form.
Piedad Maria Sanchez, Piddy for short, is starting sophomore year at a new school in Queens while her best friend, Mitzi, is off to school in Long Island. Piddy is Cuban and Dominican, but she struggles to find a place with her Latine peers in her new school. In fact, Yaqui Delgado wants to kick her ass; as Piddy says, “I don’t fit her idea of a Latina at all.” Though Piddy tries to keep her head down and avoid confrontation, the bullying at school continues to escalate from threats and misogynistic name-calling to being jumped by a group of girls on her way home. Living with constant anxiety takes its toll on Piddy: She pushes away her mom and Mitzi and even ponders dropping out of school altogether to escape her tormentors. Readers will find themselves in turns rooting for Piddy and frustrated by her choices. In each of her relationships, Piddy learns how secrets can fester and that intimacy and trust are built through transparency. This graphic adaptation is a fast-paced page-turner. Vargas keeps the text to a minimum and communicates much of Piddy’s inner turmoil wordlessly, proving the effectiveness of this format. The panels, illustrated in blue, gray, black, and white, have clean, minimalist backgrounds, putting the people and their emotions front and center.
A decade on, as relevant as ever and likely to capture the hearts of even more readers. (Graphic fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781536224771
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A twisty chronicle, filled with equal parts glory and gore, of an outlier who transforms into a modern “final girl.”
A teenager enrolls in a lethal competition to salvage her reputation and repair her broken future.
As the valedictorian of Edgewater Academy, 18-year-old Adina Walker planned to attend Yale University and escape the predictability of suburban Massachusetts, where old money, classism, and casual racism are as ubiquitous as Brooks Brothers. Fortunately, Adina has her best friend, Toni, who is one of the few other Black students on campus. After a long-simmering conflict between Adina and queen bee Esme Alderidge turns physical, Adina’s Yale acceptance is rescinded. Just when all hope seems lost, Adina is invited to participate in the Finish, a high-pressure, exclusive contest sponsored by the town’s ruling blueblood family, the Remingtons. But soon after Adina arrives at Remington Estate, she learns this competition isn’t a test of feminine etiquette—it’s a battle for survival. In this debut thriller that calls to mind the Japanese dystopian film Battle Royale (2000) and the American horror film Ready or Not (2019), power and privilege are depicted as twin evils that decimate empathy and corrupt morality. Adina’s outsider status amplifies the desperate greed and calculated sociopathy of the upper crust. While the worldbuilding is thin in some places, particularly around the dark traditions of the Remingtons and the unquestioning compliance of their sycophants, readers are rewarded with heart-stopping reveals.
A twisty chronicle, filled with equal parts glory and gore, of an outlier who transforms into a modern “final girl.” (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781665922425
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
A high-concept premise that falls short in its execution.
A teenage girl finds herself alone after everyone else in her town mysteriously disappears, leaving her scrambling to figure out how to find them all.
One late summer day, everybody in July Fielding’s town disappears. She is left to piece together what happened, following a series of cryptic signs she finds around town urging her to “GET THEM BACK.” The narrative moves back and forth between July’s present and the events of the summer before, when her relationship with her best friend, cross-country team co-captain Sydney, starts to fracture due to a combination of jealousy over July’s new relationship with a cute boy called Sam and sweet up-and-coming freshman Ella’s threatening to overtake Syd’s status as star of the track team. The team members participate in a ritual in which they jump off a cliff into the rocky waters below at the end of their Friday practice runs. Though Ella is reluctant, Syd pressures her to jump. Short, frenetically paced sections move the story along quickly, and there is much foreshadowing pointing to something terrible that occurred at the end of that summer, which may be the key to July’s current predicament, but there is much misdirection too. Ultimately this is a story without enough setup to make the turn the book takes in the end feel fully developed or earned. All characters read white.
A high-concept premise that falls short in its execution. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780593327173
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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