Quiet yet thought-provoking.
A teen grapples with both her own identity and the role identity played in her sister’s death in this French import.
It’s been one year since Muslim Sohane’s younger sister, Djelila, was burned alive by religious extremists in their apartment building in the projects. She recounts the incidents leading up to Djelila’s death, using present tense to place readers directly in the scenes and past tense as she recalls what happened from her current state of grief. Sohane and Djelila remain fierce allies, but Sohane questioningly (and sometimes jealously) notices that her sister has started to break away from their family’s Muslim traditions by sporting tight clothes and drinking alcohol. She, on the other hand, explores her religious and feminist beliefs (“Is it possible to be a woman and Muslim at the same time?”) by wearing the hijab. Both sisters’ actions are noticed immediately. Djelila becomes a source of contempt by a Taliban-like gang, while Sohane is expelled from high school for wearing a headscarf thanks to a French law that requires strict separation of church and state. The story, based on actual events, never becomes a question of whether Sohane should wear her headscarf but ruminates on how young people cope with being siblings, second-generation immigrants, feminists and believers. Rather than overwhelming the narration, these themes twine together powerfully.
Quiet yet thought-provoking. (glossary, author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74376-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
A riveting tour de force.
Sadie is seeking her sister’s killer; months later, podcast producer West McCray seeks to learn why Sadie abandoned her car and vanished.
When Mattie was born to Claire, a white, drug-addicted, single mother, Sadie, 6, became her de facto parent. Her baby sister’s love filled a hole in Sadie’s fiercely protective heart. Claire favored Mattie, who remained attached to her long after Claire disappeared from their grim, trailer-park home in rural Colorado. Sadie believes that Mattie’s determination to find Claire—which Sadie opposed—led to her brutal murder at age 13. Now 19, Sadie sets out to find and kill the man she holds responsible for her sister’s murder. Interwoven with Sadie’s first-person account is the transcript of McCray’s podcast series, The Girls, tracking his efforts to learn what’s happened to Sadie, prompted and partly guided by the sisters’ sympathetic neighbor. West’s off-the-record conversations are also included. Sadie is smart, observant, tough, and at times heartbreakingly vulnerable, her interactions mediated by a profound stutter. In the podcast, characters first seen through Sadie’s ruthless eyes further reveal (or conceal) their interactions and motives. Like Salla Simukka’s Lumikki Andersson, Sadie’s a powerful avatar: the justice-seeking loner incarnated as a teenage girl. Sadie exempts no one—including herself—from her unsparing judgment. Conveyed indirectly through its effect on victims, child sexual abuse permeates the novel as does poverty’s intergenerational legacy.
A riveting tour de force. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-10571-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
A delightfully magical twist on a classic premise.
After being separated from her at birth, Wren takes her twin sister’s place as heir to the throne.
Sheltered Rose grew up pampered in the palace, taught to hate witches by Willem Rathborne, her guardian. Unbeknown to her, Wren, her twin sister, is a witch who grew up learning how to impersonate her sister and who plans to assume the throne and free witches from persecution. With one month left before the coronation ceremony, Wren has Rose kidnapped with the help of her best friend, Shen Lo. Shen swiftly carries Rose away from the palace, across the treacherous desert, to the witches’ secret seaside settlement, where she faces ridicule. Meanwhile, Wren discovers that Rose is engaged to cheerful but boring Prince Ansel, brother to a warlord king—and she keeps running into his handsome bodyguard while sneaking out late at night. Wren must outwit everyone and convince them that she’s her sister, all while coming up with a plot to murder Rathborne. Short chapters alternating between the sisters’ perspectives keep the pace moving swiftly, and with the witty banter and clever magic, there’s never a dull moment. An unexpected ending will leave readers ready for the sequel. Main characters are White; Shen reads as East Asian, and some side characters have brown skin.
A delightfully magical twist on a classic premise. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311613-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
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