A fast-paced Canadian reluctant reader series that spends too much time in the darkness.
When Sasha’s computer hacking reveals compromising information about the Russian president, her government minister father sends the Russian teen and her mother to Canada until things cool down—but trouble soon finds her in her new home.
The CREW, outwardly a popular all-girl do-gooder group, seems like the exact thing Sasha needs to turn her life around. But she quickly realizes that the gang is about making money, not giving it out. Schemes include scamming nursing home residents out of their bank information, entrapping pedophiles with seminaked photos, and creating a fake animal rights foundation. Martha, the leader, blackmails Sasha to keep her in line, forcing her to decide how far she’s willing to go to meet the group’s increasingly extreme demands. In Epic Fail, by Cristy Watson (Dead to Me, 2016, etc.), white teen Jared fails to warn his friend Kenzie about his brother and his violent friends. Her rape and subsequent torment continue to haunt him. In Saving Grad, by Karen Spafford-Fitz (Vanish, 2013, etc.), 17-year-old Vienna, who has some Métis heritage, takes advantage of her stepfather’s brief hospitalization to escape his domestic violence and get herself and her mother to safety. Sixteen-year-old Kanika, who is black, is abducted, gang-raped, and forced into prostitution in Ride or Die, by Wanda Lauren Taylor. The endings of these gritty books are, at best, mixed. Unfortunately, while the stories themselves are compelling, most end on notes of uncertainty that don’t indicate that any real healing took place or that perpetrators were fully held to account. In addition to the diverse protagonists, many secondary characters also bring diversity to the series, including a Chinese-Canadian adoptee, a gay high school student, and a young woman who uses a wheelchair.
A fast-paced Canadian reluctant reader series that spends too much time in the darkness. (Fiction. 16-18)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4594-1288-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: James Lorimer
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship.
A battered girl and an injured rugby star spark up an ill-advised romance at an Irish secondary school.
Beautiful, waiflike, 15-year-old Shannon has lived her entire life in Ballylaggin. Alternately bullied at school and beaten by her ne’er-do-well father, she’s hopeful for a fresh start at Tommen, a private school. Seventeen-year-old Johnny, who has a hair-trigger temper and a severe groin injury, is used to Dublin’s elite-level rugby but, since his family’s move to County Cork, is now stuck captaining Tommen’s middling team. When Johnny angrily kicks a ball and knocks Shannon unconscious (“a soft female groan came from her lips”), a tentative relationship is born. As the two grow closer, Johnny’s past and Shannon’s present become serious obstacles to their budding love, threatening Shannon’s safety. Shannon’s portrayal feels infantilized (“I looked down at the tiny little female under my arm”), while Johnny comes across as borderline obsessive (“I knew I shouldn’t be touching her, but how the hell could I not?”). Uneven pacing and choppy sentences lead to a sudden climax and an unsatisfyingly abrupt ending. Repetitive descriptions, abundant and misogynistic dialogue (Johnny, to his best friend: “who’s the bitch with a vagina now?”), and graphic violence also weigh down this lengthy tome (considerably trimmed down from its original, self-published length). The cast of lively, well-developed supporting characters, especially Johnny’s best friend and Shannon’s protective older brother, is a bright spot. Major characters read white.
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship. (author’s note, pronunciations, glossary, song moments, playlists) (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781728299945
Page Count: 626
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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