by Amalie Jahn ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2019
Packed with overexplained life lessons, this book is an earnest attempt to do too much.
In Jahn’s (Beyond the Sanctified, 2017, etc.) latest, a teenage farm girl’s move to the East Coast teaches her about friendship, diversity, love, and herself.
Tess is deeply attached to her Iowa life, particularly her best friend, Zander, the family farm, and their cows. Finances force a difficult decision to sell the farm; her dad is re-enlisting in the Army to help in Syria. Tess is anxious about moving to North Carolina and starting over socially; even in her small Iowa school, she’s found it difficult to connect with people. The sheer size of her new high school is overwhelming, but Leonetta, a black girl assigned to help Tess (who is white) find her way around, quickly befriends her. Their bond grows to include Summer, who is white, and Alice, who is black. Being part of a group of supportive, caring friends is a new and wonderful experience for Tess. Tess is shocked and dismayed to witness the injustices her black friends face on a regular basis, and there are moments when she makes insensitive and uninformed remarks. These potentially impactful scenes—it seems Tess experiences a revelation every day—are ruined by explicit analysis, melodrama, lack of tension, or predictability. As the characters lack depth, major plot revelations fall flat as well.
Packed with overexplained life lessons, this book is an earnest attempt to do too much. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61153-264-7
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Light Messages
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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by Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 4, 2020
Best leave it at maybe so.
Two 17-year-olds from the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, work together on a campaign for a progressive state senate candidate in an unlikely love story.
Co-authors Albertalli (Leah on the Offbeat, 2018, etc.) and Saeed (Bilal Cooks Daal, 2019, etc.) present Jamie Goldberg, a white Ashkenazi Jewish boy who suffers from being “painfully bad at anything girl-related,” and Maya Rehman, a Pakistani American Muslim girl struggling with her parents’ sudden separation. Former childhood best friends, they find themselves volunteered as a team by their mothers during a Ramadan “campaign iftar.” One canvassing adventure at a time, they grow closer despite Maya’s no-dating policy. Chapters alternate between Maya’s and Jamie’s first-person voices. The endearing, if somewhat clichéd, teens sweetly connect over similarities like divorced parents, and their activism will resonate with many. Jamie is sensitive, clumsy, and insecure; Maya is determined, sassy, a dash spoiled, and she swears freely. The novel covers timeless themes of teen activism and love-conquers-all along with election highs and lows, messy divorces, teen angst, bat mitzvah stress, social media gaffes, right-wing haters, friendship drama, and cultural misunderstandings, but the explicit advocacy at times interferes with an immersive reading experience and the text often feels repetitious. Maya’s mother is hijabi, and while Maya advocates against a hijab ban, she chooses not to wear hijab and actively wrestles with what it means to be an observant Muslim.
Best leave it at maybe so. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293704-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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by Mariko Tamaki ; illustrated by Yoshi Yoshitani ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 27, 2021
Equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking.
Sixteen-year-old Mandy considers herself the anti-Starfire: Unlike her scantily clad superhero mother, she doesn’t have superpowers, can’t fly, and doesn’t even own a bathing suit.
Mandy dyes her hair and dresses in all black to further call out how different they are. Mandy’s best friend, Lincoln, whose parents were born in Vietnam, insightfully summarizes this rift as being down to an intergenerational divide that occurs whether parents and children come from different countries or different planets. Mandy tries to figure out what kind of future she wants for herself as she struggles with teenage insecurities and bullying, her relationship with her mom, and her budding friendship (or is it something more?) with her new class project partner, Claire. Yoshitani’s vibrant and colorful stylized illustrations beautifully meld the various iterations of Starfire and the Titans with the live-action versions of those characters. Together with Tamaki’s punchy writing, this coming-of-age story of identity, family, friendship, and saving the world is skillfully brought to life in a quick but nuanced read. These layers are most strongly displayed as the story draws parallels between cultural differences between the generations as evidenced in how the characters address bullying, body positivity, fatphobia, fetishization and sexualization, and feminism. This title addresses many important concepts briefly, but well, with great pacing, bold art, and concise and snappy dialogue. The cast is broadly diverse in both primary and secondary characters.
Equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking. (Graphic fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77950-126-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
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by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki ; illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
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