An addicting thriller that will make anyone who loves ballet clamor for another installment.
Three girls compete for two coveted company spots in New York’s prestigious American Ballet Company, and someone is willing to kill for them.
Gossip Girl meets Black Swan in Charaipotra and Clayton’s drama-filled sequel to Tiny Pretty Things (2015), which returns readers to the privileged Upper East Side dance conservatory and a world fueled by diet pills, dirty secrets, and unbridled ambition. This novel’s diverse cast of ballerinas retains its delightful adolescent cattiness, though each girl has been shaken and hardened, still haunted by the events of the first book. Once again, three protagonists rotate narration: Gigi, the talented black outsider whose career was nearly ended by deadly hazing, June, the Korean-American girl from the wrong side of the Queensboro Bridge, and Bette, the white, wealthy, disgraced former queen bee, determined to prove her innocence. Each girl’s emotional battle with perfectionism feels individual and brutally authentic. The book’s astute focus on ballet’s ability to enrich, ennoble, and also consume the lives of its dancers is what provides this story with its delicious spark. Equal parts mystery and social commentary, the novel is engrossing and titillating without being hyperbolic, which is a testament to the authors’ talent and a reflection of an art form that simultaneously raises young women to the highest heights while reducing them to shells of themselves.
An addicting thriller that will make anyone who loves ballet clamor for another installment. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234242-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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
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
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