by Alex Wheatle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2019
The use of extreme trauma to further this story’s development creates an unredeemable disconnect.
Naomi Brisset, a 14-year-old white British girl in foster care, moves restlessly from home to home.
After Naomi accuses her latest foster father of being “a perv with a big prick P,” her social worker places her with a “second-generation British, West Indian” family, and Naomi begins to build familial connections with the parents, Tony and Colleen, who was also a foster child, and their two children, Pablo and Sharyna. Wheatle (Kerb-Stain Boys, 2018, etc.) has created a distasteful study in misogynoir, ableism, and homophobia. The book fast-tracks Naomi through situations where she leans into socially problematic scenarios with no apparent awareness: She begs her black foster mother to braid her hair so that she looks like Solange Knowles or Alicia Keys then is accused of cultural appropriation by a black girl who confronts her and is locked up in in-school suspension before being carted away. Wheatle's fictional Crongton leans into every negative stereotype of spaces where there are large concentrations of black communities. An opportunity to discuss issues of race in contemporary Britain is squandered when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is quoted out of context, with Tony’s father being labeled racist while Naomi’s own racist commentary is not interrogated. The only queer relationship and characters in the story are demonized through violent and degrading behavior.
The use of extreme trauma to further this story’s development creates an unredeemable disconnect. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61775-753-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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by K.L. Walther ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021
Summery fun and games with feeling.
A summer trip helps break 18-year-old Meredith Fox out of a haze of mourning.
Her cousin’s wedding means a return to Martha’s Vineyard, a well-loved destination but one filled with bittersweet memories. It’s been a year and a half since the sudden loss of Meredith’s sister, Claire, and the grief remains strong. Meredith, though, resolves to take this time to celebrate family and bridge the rifts resulting from ghosting friends. She didn’t plan on a meet-cute/embarrassing encounter with the groom’s stepbrother, Wit. Nor did she expect a wedding-week game of Assassin, a water-gun–fueled family tradition. What starts off as a pact of sharing strategic information with Wit grows into something more as the flirting and feelings develop. Only one person can win, though, and any alliance has an expiration date. To win and honor Claire, who was a master of the game, Meredith must keep her eye on the prize. Taking place over the course of a week, the narrative is tight with well-paced reveals that disrupt predictability and keep the plot moving. Early details are picked back up, and many elements come satisfyingly full circle. The short time frame also heightens the tension of this summer romance: What will happen when they leave the bubble of the Vineyard? The mix of budding romance, competitive hijinks, a close-knit circle, as well as dealing with loss make for a satisfying read. The main cast is White.
Summery fun and games with feeling. (family tree) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72821-029-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
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by E. Lockhart ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2014
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
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A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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