Benwell's gentle treatment of friendship and death with dignity will touch fans of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars...
A Japanese teen contracts a fatal disease and tests the strength of friendship.
Online, introverted Abe Sora can be anything—like the 17-year-old baseball player he was before Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, stole his ability to walk and even attend school. Largely homebound, he turns to samurai death poetry for comfort and the KyoToTeenz chat room for distraction. Eavesdropping on school woes and exchanging quips (printed in various types for verisimilitude), he meets artistic Mai and techy Kaito, and he eventually invites them to dinner. Overcoming their initial awkwardness, they become inseparable. Through vividly depicted outings and comic-book adventures, they give Sora something to live for as his health declines. Search terms like "help me die" foreshadow his outlook, however, and after poignantly encountering a dying man and waking up unable to use his fingers, he wonders if his friends will help him. Sora's introspective narration, coupled with stark and startling moments of chapter-to-chapter deterioration, emphasizes that suicide is his personal choice, avoiding generalizations of disability as a whole. Their dialogue is sometimes stilted, but the supportive characterizations of Sora's family and friends ease the sharply articulated uncertainty of disability and dying young. References to samurai culture and snippets of poetry will leave readers at peace with the drifting ending.
Benwell's gentle treatment of friendship and death with dignity will touch fans of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (2012). (glossary) (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3065-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
BOOK REVIEW
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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