This teen-love not-quite-trifle demonstrates that between the lines resides truth about perception, others, and most...
Her family’s move to the wrong side of the tracks feels like a devastating fall from grace for Ivy.
Her parents hid their financial struggles until the announcement that they are selling everything, including Ivy’s beloved piano, and moving to the poor side of town. Ivy goes to great lengths to hide this change from her rich friends. The strain is enormous, as Ivy, her parents, and her twin siblings are forced to rely on the charity of food banks. Additionally, she finds it loathsome that the guy next door, Lennie, with tattoos and a bad reputation, is making overtures of friendship. Enter the gorgeous new boy in high school, James. In a betrayal of Ivy’s smitten best friend, they strike up a secret friendship, leaving special notes to each other contained within their favorite books. Of course, nothing is quite as it seems. Ivy must face her shallowness and apparent lack of ability to do simple deductive reasoning, as she continues to confuse which potential love interest is doing what. Were it not for Ivy’s emotionally complex relationship with her little brother, who has a seizure disorder, this would languish as a nice but typical romance in which the girl must choose between two, very disparate knights in shining armor.
This teen-love not-quite-trifle demonstrates that between the lines resides truth about perception, others, and most importantly oneself. (Romance. 14-17)Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-229172-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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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