This ambitious debut shows a skillful hand with prose in its depiction of the pivotal role sports can play in the life of an adolescent boy, but it fails to convey the complexities of incest, its other major plot element. Twelve-year-old “Tex” Donleavy initially dislikes Farley, his new stepfather, a high school baseball coach. But over the summer, Farley and his daughter Jack, named for Jackie Robinson, help Tex to master baseball, despite his deformed hand, and to feel socially at ease on Farley’s Little League team. On the last page, Tex reflects that Farley and Jack “not only made him a ballplayer, they’d made him whole.” He then regrets having revealed to his father that he saw Farley sexually abusing Jack, incest that had been going on for years. Tex’s misgivings, voiced the day after witnessing Farley masturbate as he stroked his 12-year-old daughter, show an emotional distancing from the incest characteristic of everyone involved. By keeping close to Tex’s confused view, the narrative largely ignores the painful psychological impact of incest on Jack. Tex’s father, an upright small-town lawyer, intervenes in the situation with a muddled discourse on sexual abuse laws and a tidy plan to help Farley avoid criminal consequences and keep his daughter. Earlier scenes in which Tex takes Jack to watch his father defend a man accused of “date rape,” Jack lets schoolmates feel her breasts, and Tex lusts after his father’s girlfriend seem contrived to emphasize Tex’s confusion about sexual matters and morality. Readers who are emotionally equipped to fill in the gaps about incest and its effects are probably unlikely to pick up a book about a 12-year-old baseball player. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2002
ISBN: 0-374-35509-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2002
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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