Although little recent fiction deals with children of damaged veterans, there are numerous outstanding works about addicted...
High school sophomore Paige’s mother, a captain in the military, has just come home from Afghanistan, seemingly a welcome event.
Sadly, her mother, injured in an attack two years before, comes home addicted to pain medications and tranquilizers. She’s devolved into a hardened and angry woman who buries her unhappiness in a drug-induced stupor every night. Paige, dealing with friends’ relationships and her own only slightly depicted romance with David, a fellow ROTC member, is uncertain how to cope with both her mother’s unexplained but venomous hostility toward her and the addiction. The Support and Defend series seems to be intended as potential bibliotherapy for the teen offspring of damaged veterans. However, the novel is brief, perhaps to enhance its appeal for reluctant readers, which leaves little room for character or plot development. Only Paige is marginally rounded; others do little more than slide in and out of the message-focused narrative. Dialogue, too, is trite. Paige’s mom, finally recognizing her need for treatment, comments: “I fought for freedom for others….I need to fight now for my own.” After being sent to rehab, she mentions that there are many soldiers like her and adds, “We’ve got each other and our treatment team.”
Although little recent fiction deals with children of damaged veterans, there are numerous outstanding works about addicted parents that would resonate more with readers than this weak title. (Fiction. 11-16)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4677-8092-6
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Darby Creek
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful.
January 1945: as Russians advance through East Prussia, four teens’ lives converge in hopes of escape.
Returning to the successful formula of her highly lauded debut, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys combines research (described in extensive backmatter) with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. Told in four alternating voices—Lithuanian nurse Joana, Polish Emilia, Prussian forger Florian, and German soldier Alfred—with often contemporary cadences, this stints on neither history nor fiction. The three sympathetic refugees and their motley companions (especially an orphaned boy and an elderly shoemaker) make it clear that while the Gustloff was a German ship full of German civilians and soldiers during World War II, its sinking was still a tragedy. Only Alfred, stationed on the Gustloff, lacks sympathy; almost a caricature, he is self-delusional, unlikable, a Hitler worshiper. As a vehicle for exposition, however, and a reminder of Germany’s role in the war, he serves an invaluable purpose that almost makes up for the mustache-twirling quality of his petty villainy. The inevitability of the ending (including the loss of several characters) doesn’t change its poignancy, and the short chapters and slowly revealed back stories for each character guarantee the pages keep turning.
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful. (author’s note, research and sources, maps) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16030-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
PROFILES
Intertwined spectral and real worlds deliver double the thrills.
Leaving his actual body behind in prison, Smoke can move through the world as a ghost in this fantastic yet real portrait of a survivor seeking answers.
John “Smoke” Conlan has survived a brutal beating from his father, a murder conviction, and prison life. His uncanny ability evidently triggered by the beating, Smoke exists inside and outside the fictional Greater Denver Youth Offender Rehabilitation Center (unrealistically represented as a maximum security prison). Smoke keeps his physical body protected on the inside thanks to the balance of favors earned outside his body. On one such errand, he discovers that a young waitress at a seedy dive can actually see him. Smoke’s vivid present-tense narration is filtered according to his concerns. He insists that he is innocent of killing his favorite teacher but guilty of killing a fellow student in self-defense, keeping readers teetering between a belief that the punishment is justified and cheering Smoke on to fight for freedom. The narrative’s romance is chaste, and it tempers the intensity brought to the story by the threats of guards, fellow inmates, and outside criminals. Though the complex plot is based on an impossible premise, readers will be flipping the pages, watching the diverse cast (Smoke is white) race toward the climax.
Intertwined spectral and real worlds deliver double the thrills. (Paranormal suspense. 11-16)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2597-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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