A sweet romance with deep undercurrents.
As a fourth-generation beekeeper, high school senior Josie Hazeldine has honey-making in her past—but she’s very stressed about her future.
One major cause of anxiety is her mother’s insistence on her going to college. Although Josie applied and was accepted, she secretly turned down the offer, preferring to remain in her comfortable, ramshackle Northern California home and support her young single mother in the family beekeeping business which she hopes to inherit. When Mom goes to visit Gran, who relocated to Florida, in order to check on her health, Josie’s relationship with hunky 18-year-old Ezra blossoms. But things get complicated when Ezra turns out to be a member of the Blumstein clan, rival beekeepers with whom the Hazeldines have had a long-standing feud. The stress of keeping their relationship from her mother and hiding the fact that she turned down a college offer while also trying to earn respect for her beekeeping skills causes Josie’s anxieties to increase. Faced with complicated choices, Josie learns to acknowledge her true strengths and, ultimately, to follow her heart. The authentic descriptions of beekeeping, gleaned from the author’s personal experiences, and the sensitive depiction of teen anxiety elevate this story. Josie’s sympathetic personality and determination to overcome her challenges make for a satisfying read. Main characters present White.
A sweet romance with deep undercurrents. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5300-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
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
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders.
Andy and Shelbi find love while navigating mental health challenges in suburban Georgia.
It all starts when 18-year-old Andy Criddle drunkenly texts the wrong number. The mistaken recipient ends up offering him emotional support and asks him not to drive drunk. Despite agreeing, he gets behind the wheel—and into an accident. After being charged with a DUI, Andy, the son of a congresswoman running for Senate, is barred from attending his graduation and shamed in the press. Meanwhile, 16-year-old AP physics student Shelbi Augustine, who finds car crashes interesting for scientific reasons, picks up Andy’s wallet at the scene of the wreck. She returns it to him in class and gives him a pep talk before nervously rushing away. The judge orders Andy to complete community service at a soup kitchen where Shelbi regularly volunteers, and when their paths cross again, she confesses that she was the person he was texting. As they grow closer, Shelbi, who has bipolar depression, has Andy sign a friendship agreement. Rule No. 6 reads, “Do not, under any circumstances, fall in love with Shelbi.” Naturally, this is a rule destined to be broken. The comfort and ease the two have are mirrored by Stone’s breezy writing. Her casual tone acts as a potent salve for the heart-wrenching scenes and the searing portrayal of healing. Most characters are Black; Andy’s dad is White, and Shelbi’s paternal grandmother is from India.
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders. (author’s note) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-30770-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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