A coming-of-age journey that would be strong if only it starred a believable teen
A poor California girl finds her world turned upside down when her mother marries into the Boston ultrarich.
At the beginning of her junior year on California’s central coast, India is popular and well-liked, but her mother, Hayley, has fallen in love with a high-society lawyer from the opposite coast, which wrenches her away from everything she knows. From Day 1, Theo’s daughter, Eloise, makes it very clear that India’s an unwelcome intruder both in Theo’s mansion and at Eloise’s exclusive prep school. Flashback nightmares reveal an India who was horrifically abused for much of her childhood while Hayley was absent, leaving her with trust issues as massive as her palatial new home. Befriending Eloise’s blue-blooded social group teaches class-conscious India that poor kids who grew up in trailers are not the only ones with problems; rich white prep school kids have their own traumas (India’s race goes unmentioned, implying that she is white; Eloise is white). India experiences a powerful journey to self-love and self-respect in the face of both classism and sexual entitlement, but she is so thinly drawn she’s hardly real. The choppy prose of her journey from public high school student who can only afford takeout three times a year to mansion-dwelling prep school attendee in Massachusetts boils down to a focus on high-end architecture.
A coming-of-age journey that would be strong if only it starred a believable teen . (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: June 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-373-21242-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Several yards short of a touchdown.
A transgender boy starting over at a new school falls hard for a popular cheerleader with a reputation to protect in this debut.
On the first day of senior year, transgender boy Pony locks eyes with cisgender cheerleader Georgia. They both have pasts they want to leave behind. No one at Hillcrest High knows that Pony is transgender, and he intends to keep it that way. Georgia’s last boyfriend shook her trust in boys, and now she’s determined to forget him. As mutual attraction draws them together, Pony and Georgia must decide what they are willing to risk for a relationship. Pony’s best friend, Max, who is also transgender, disapproves of Pony’s choice to live stealth; this disagreement leads to serious conflict in their relationship. Meanwhile, Georgia and Pony behave as if Pony’s trans identity was a secret he was lying to her about rather than private information for him to share of his own volition. The characters only arrive at a hopeful resolution after Pony pays high physical and emotional prices. McSmith places repeated emphasis on the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative when the characters discuss trans identities. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main characters are white.
Several yards short of a touchdown. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294317-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one.
Teens become astronauts in record time for an inaugural space mission.
After losing his family to “the greatest flood Rome has ever known,” skilled white Italian swimmer Leo Danieli would never have expected that in his darkest moment he would be drafted by the European Space Agency to attend the International Space Training Camp, where teens will train to terraform and colonize Jupiter’s moon Europa for human settlement. California native Naomi Ardalan, a second-generation Iranian-American, has also been chosen for her expertise in science and technology. During a period of violent climate change worldwide, Earth’s governments are desperate to draft teens for a space mission for which they have only a few weeks in which to prepare. Twenty-four teen finalists, many orphaned by cataclysmic natural disasters, have been chosen from all over the world to compete for this space colonization mission. Warnings come to Leo and Naomi that there is a more sinister aspect to this mission, especially after things go tragically awry with other candidates during the training. The relationship that develops between Naomi and Leo feels forced, as if their meeting necessitates speedy deployment of a romantic cliché. The use of predictable plot devices, along with the fundamentally ludicrous premise, undermines any believability that would make a reader invest in such an elaborate space journey.
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one. (Science fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-265894-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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