A breezy, if slow-paced, teen romance with a healthy dose of self-discovery.
A new high school graduate in Ridgewood, New York, grapples with her future and her relationships.
Eighteen-year-old Jackie has three goals for the summer: spend as much time as possible with best friend Suzy, earn enough to buy a used car for their long-anticipated cross-country road trip, and figure out what she should do next. What she didn’t have planned was being demoted from waitressing to wearing a frog costume at work. Why was she sent to “amphibian jail”? Wilson, the annoyingly handsome new assistant manager at Monte’s Magic Castle, where Jackie helps with kids’ birthday parties, disciplined her for a minor infraction, thus becoming Jackie’s “mortal enemy” whom she takes pride in annoying. As she tries to find herself, Jackie secretly draws on her older twin sisters’ dating experiences to launch a social media account giving break-up advice; it quickly goes viral. But when she learns that her anonymous guidance has led Wilson’s girlfriend, Kenzie, to break up with him, she guiltily tries to help him win her back. Jackie’s summer soon becomes more complicated than she could have imagined. This novel told in Jackie’s first-person perspective is a leisurely enemies-to-lovers story. The light tone is entertaining, and Jackie’s growth is (refreshingly) not dependent on her male love interest; however, the dialogue feels flat and repetitive in places. Jackie and Wilson present white, Kenzie is cued Black, and Suzy is Korean and white.
A breezy, if slow-paced, teen romance with a healthy dose of self-discovery. (Romance. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063334069
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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
Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations.
Magic, mystery, and love intertwine and invite in this newest take on the “enchanted circus” trope.
Sisters raised by their abusive father, a governor of a colonial backwater in a world vaguely reminiscent of the late 18th century, Scarlett and Donatella each long for something more. Scarlett, olive-skinned, dark of hair and attitude, longs for Caraval, the fabled, magical circus helmed by the possibly evil Master Legend Santos, while blonde, sunny Tella finds comfort in drink and the embraces of various men. A slightly awkward start, with inconsistencies of attitude and setting, rapidly smooths out when they, along with handsome “golden-brown” sailor Julian, flee to Caraval on the eve of Scarlett’s arranged marriage. Tella disappears, and Scarlett must navigate a nighttime world of magic to find her. Caraval delights the senses: beautiful and scary, described in luscious prose, this is a show readers will wish they could enter. Dresses can be purchased for secrets or days of life; clocks can become doors; bridges move: this is an inventive and original circus, laced with an edge of horror. A double love story, one sensual romance and the other sisterly loyalty, anchors the plot, but the real star here is Caraval and its secrets.
Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations. (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-09525-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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