Smart prose blends youthful concerns with complex issues in a timely summer read.
In Kreuter’s novel, a Jewish summer camp reflects the complicated politics of the outside world.
It’s the summer of 2013 in Ontario, and Camp Burntshore, a sleepaway camp for Jewish youngsters and teenagers, is just starting to buzz with the arrival of campers and counselors. Even the camp’s meticulous program director, Deborah “Debs” Glassman,is caught up in the energy, taking her time to notice the “smell of the woods, the fear and desire, the startlingly fast, startlingly efficacious sensation that this was the best place on Earth.” However, the fun quickly ends for several counselors who are dismissed the first night for smoking cannabis. Twenty-one-year-old counselor Ruby Shacter only narrowly misses expulsion by going the bathroom at just the right moment. The camp’s surprising solution to its sudden counselor shortage is to bring in Israeli soldiers to fill in gaps and offer moments of cultural exchange. Ruby, who’s the treasurer of York University’s Students Against Israeli War Crimes and an outspoken anti-Zionist, doesn’t miss any opportunity to stir debate about the new arrivals. Her position starts to soften, though, after she meets dreamy soldier Etai, who claims to hate the occupation just as much as she does. He refers to Canadian Jews as having “diasporic weakness,” but with a winking grin that starts to win Ruby over. As flirtation evolves into a summer romance, Ruby struggles to justify her political positions and confused feelings—especially in regretful letters to her Palestinian best friend, Seema, back home. Then a second announcement from the camp’s administration sharpens Ruby’s focus: The owner’s son, Brett, plans to acquire undeveloped government land across the river, historically linked to the Black Spruce First Nation.
Kreuter effortlessly captures the strange, youthful energy of the camp, which is overexcited and pleasantly aimless, due to the abundance of nature, weed, and hormones. He takes readers on several bird’s-eye-view tours, dipping into the minds and cabins of various characters to expose their darkest and funniest wishes. Kreuter also plays with perspective by cleverly trapping into the heat of Ruby’s debates about Israeli occupation before zooming out slightly to remind readers of her privilege, as when Seema writes that, for her, camp always meant refugee camp, or when another counselor notes why she cares about Israel: “because the one thing I want this summer is to bang a hot Israeli soldier!” In the second section, the shifts between real-world and campier concerns make it a bit unclear exactly which follies that Kreuter is trying to roast on the campfire. For example, in the latter part of the novel, Ruby’s time at the camp centers on figuring out what the different counselors think about the land acquisition plan—and whether she can make a stand between rehearsals for a production of the beloved musical Tel Aviv! What remains consistent, however, is the author’s masterful characterization. With strong voices like Ruby’s to guide them, readers certainly won’t regret spending a summer at Burntshore.
Smart prose blends youthful concerns with complex issues in a timely summer read.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9781770417632
Page Count: 408
Publisher: ECW Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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