Channeling the likes of Nicholas Sparks, Zink offers readers a formulaic, saccharine-sweet summer romance that will leave...
Lonesome, tenderhearted cowboy? Check. Grieving and fiercely independent young woman who’s sworn never again to open herself up to love? Check. An undeniable chemistry “like the charge in the air just before lightning cracks the sky?” Double check.
Rose Darrow, a newly minted high school graduate, is neither college bound nor setting off to explore the world she longs to see. Instead, she will remain at home to run the farm where her family has lived for generations while grieving the loss of her mother and tending to her broken-hearted father. Enter 18-year-old Bodhi Lowell, a cowboy who left home at 14 and never turned back. Hired by Rose’s aunt as a summer hand, Bodhi arrives at the Darrow farm, and the inevitable sparks begin to fly. Though it's predictable and rife with hyperbolic professions of love and longing, readers who know the score and are willing to go along for the ride will find plenty to enjoy. The white teens are both likable and damaged just enough to engage easy sympathy, and fans will surely find themselves rooting for Bodhi and Rose to get together and for their predestined (both figurative and literal) roll in the hay.
Channeling the likes of Nicholas Sparks, Zink offers readers a formulaic, saccharine-sweet summer romance that will leave fans of the genre with racing hearts and others with their teeth aching. (Romance. 13 & up)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-243446-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
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
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
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