by Megan Cooley Peterson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
An intriguing look at a young woman adjusting to life outside a cult.
An angst-y version of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Piper believes in the Community: Mother and Father have established strict rules that keep everyone safe. Even if all the rules do not make sense—bleaching hair, digging graves, being told whom you will marry—Piper faithfully believes. When government agents enter their compound and she and the others are taken to the Outside against their will, she will do anything to go back. However, she has been sent to live with a woman who tells her that she is her real mother and that Piper was taken from her as a child. Peterson (The Angry Alien, 2017, etc.) weaves a lush novel full of cryptic scenes divided into “before” chapters showing Piper’s life in the cult and “after,” when she is set free, which readers fit together for a thrilling ending. The novel presents an accessible look at what makes cults (especially religious ones) attractive to some, and it will appeal to those interested in subjects such as Charles Manson and the Branch Davidians. As readers follow Piper through therapy, they learn that while memories can be unreliable, they can trust their feelings and listen to their instincts. Piper finds that while time might not heal all wounds, supportive friends, family, medication, and therapy will help. Characters are assumed white.
An intriguing look at a young woman adjusting to life outside a cult. (Fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4418-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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by Daniel Aleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021
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
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by E. Lockhart ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2014
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
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A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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