A didactic web of family dramas and lessons for living that falls short in nuanced representation.
Sophronia Gayle-St. John, plagued by unexplained mood swings, memory lapses, and clumsiness, struggles through high school as best she can.
Sophie’s class for students with disabilities will be performing the play Abomination, the story of a magical, disfigured child who’s shunned by society, that’s based on an award-winning novel by Mariam Gayle, her literary titan of a grandmother. This prompts Sophie to dig into her family’s past—and she discovers shocking revelations, among them the fact that her parents won damages in a lawsuit over her “wrongful birth.” For 16 years, they’ve carefully hidden her diagnosis of juvenile Huntington’s disease, and Sophie learns she may only have a short time left to live. Now she must decide what to do with this truth. Hughes grapples with enormous questions about bodily autonomy, genetic testing, legal morality, and coping with terminal illness—and only sometimes succeeds. Sophie’s classmates, thrown together despite vastly different access and academic needs, are a collection of broadly drawn disability stereotypes; Sophie herself, while easy to root for in her anger and intense willfulness, is on a trajectory that feels intended more to teach through inspirational clichés than to paint a truly complicated vision of disabled reality. More successful are the explorations of interpersonal conflicts, her high-powered professional parents’ neglect, Mariam’s legacy of abuse, and Sophie’s profound isolation. Sophie’s family is cued white.
A didactic web of family dramas and lessons for living that falls short in nuanced representation. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781770867093
Page Count: 240
Publisher: DCB
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring.
When Death-Cast doesn’t call, fate intertwines the lives of two boys, both haunted by their pasts and with futures they can’t escape.
In this third installment of the series that opened with 2017’s They Both Die at the End, Paz Dario waits every night for Death-Cast to call—as it should have for his father nearly 10 years ago, when Paz shot him to save his mother’s life. But the call never comes. Death-Cast killed Paz’s dreams of an acting career: No one will hire him now because the world sees him as a villain. When Paz tries (not for the first time) to put an end to his suffering, an unexpected encounter with Alano Rosa, the heir of Death-Cast, stops him. Both in a place of desperation, Alano and Paz sign a contract to live for Begin Days instead of waiting for their End Days. As suspenseful and emotionally wrenching as the previous titles in the series, this new installment explores heavy themes of abuse, mental health, self-harm, and suicide. Paz grapples with a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Silvera surrounds Alano and Paz with a web of complex relationships. Although the protagonists fall fast for one another and form a deep connection over Alano’s desire to support Paz, Silvera emphasizes the importance of professional help. Both Alano and Paz have Puerto Rican heritage. The cliffhanger ending promises more to come.
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring. (content warning, resources) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780063240858
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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
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