Thought-provoking and comforting.
In a world where memory tampering is possible, two Korean Canadian teens deal with the repercussions of memory loss.
Seventeen-year-old Yena Bae is in Busan, South Korea, for the summer, working at her divorced mother’s memory erasure clinic. When she runs into her childhood best friend, Lucas Pak, who left Vancouver for Alberta without a word, she’s shocked—they’re halfway around the world and, having discovered his memory tape at the clinic, she knows he had his memories of her erased. Lucas is in Busan visiting his grandfather, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Lucas hopes to enroll Harabeoji in the clinic’s new memory restoration trial. As Lucas enlists Yena’s help, she struggles with questions around his motivations while having to keep their old friendship a secret to protect him from complications of the erasure procedure. At the same time, Lucas can’t shake the feeling that people are hiding something. This story explores the grief of carrying formerly shared memories alone, while also offering readers an earnest budding romance. The narrative alternates between the leads’ perspectives and includes a rich tapestry of settings (a bamboo forest, a fish market) as well as flashback vignettes from the points of view of various inanimate objects (a popcorn machine, a lawn mower) whose sounds were captured on cassette tapes used for the memory erasure procedures. The novel’s speculative premise offers musings on the social consequences of technology as an intriguing backdrop for a gentle friends-to-lovers romance.
Thought-provoking and comforting. (Speculative romance. 13-18)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780063255180
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
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