A winning story about growing up and spreading your wings.
Reticent Florie and spontaneous Kacey, BFFs and recent high school grads, are spending their last weeks of summer together.
Kacey will leave their small Washington town to attend art school; Florie has OCD and will take a gap year to prepare for the challenges of college. When the girls win tickets to a broadcast and meet-and-greet in San Francisco with the hosts of their favorite podcast, Murder Me Later, Sam, Kacey’s older brother, offers to drive them. They calculate that they can make it there and back before any of their parents realize they are not actually staying at a Bainbridge Island beach house as originally planned. Florie sees this as her opportunity to show her independence and the emotional growth she’s made in therapy. Complicating matters, serial dater Sam kissed Florie at a winter holiday party; she thought her mental health issues precluded a romantic relationship, but empathetic Sam listens as she speaks honestly about her OCD and is not scared away. The fact that she’s hidden her feelings for Sam causes conflict with Kacey, however. And then Florie’s overprotective mother shows up in San Francisco to drag her home, a conflict that ultimately leads to growth. Florie’s first-person narration is realistic and straightforward, with touches of humor, frank language, and romance. The girls create a bucket list for the road trip that reappears throughout with funny annotations. All major characters present White.
A winning story about growing up and spreading your wings. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-9354-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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