Although the story offers no real surprises, the author’s amusing first-person account and eye for detail keep the narrative...
Sarah’s hard-drinking, charismatic father has been dead for close to a year when this aptly titled novel from Pennebaker (Don’t Think Twice, 1996, etc.) opens.
A social nonentity in her ritzy school, Sarah and her earnest best friend, Ellie, spend their afternoons writing letters to the governor, begging him to spare death-row inmates. Sarah, still coming to terms with her grief, has recently grown weary of serious issues and dreary causes; moreover, she’s tired of Ellie’s sad-sack personality and her self- absorbed, dysfunctional family. Sarah wants to grow up, figure out how to get Ben to like her the way she likes him, and have some fun for a change. In the course of this intelligent, touching novel, she does just that, guiltily jettisoning Ellie for a new best friend, and reaching out to her crush. More significantly, she forges a new understanding with her mother, and discovers that the love she felt for her father was real even though he wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Although the story offers no real surprises, the author’s amusing first-person account and eye for detail keep the narrative consistently engaging; setting Pennebaker’s novel apart from the pack is the very specific behaviors and warty humanness of the adroitly drawn characters. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8050-6104-5
Page Count: 259
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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