A wealthy blended family of white siblings purposely misses their connecting flight as a way of protesting their parents’ divorce in this debut by screenwriters Andelson and Meyer.
After 10-year-old Poppy lets slip to her older half brother and half sister, Amos and Flynn, that she overheard their parents are planning to divorce, the angry trio decides to ditch meeting their parents in Bora Bora and get off the plane in LA. Luckily, Flynn’s rich, Indian-American summer-camp crush, Neel Khan, lives nearby and can rescue them. So they dump their cellphones and embark on a three-day adventure that includes both a visit to Disneyland and the loss of Flynn’s virginity. The sibs’ complicated past is relayed in flashbacks: Flynn’s dad and Amos’ mom had an affair, divorced their spouses, married each other, and had Poppy. Stepsiblings Flynn and Amos, only a year apart, dote on Poppy and are beginning to have romantic feelings for each other. But unfortunately, their voices are so indistinguishable that it’s often difficult to decipher whose parent did what and who is crushing on whom. And the relentlessly clichéd dialogue (“ ‘What’s your problem, Amos?’ I fire back, trying not to let my voice crack. / ‘I don’t have a problem’ / ‘Right.’ / ‘You know what? I take it back. I do have a problem,’ he says. And then, outrageously: 'You. You’re my problem, Flynn’ ”) doesn’t help much in individuating them.
Readers looking for a guilty-pleasure 1-percent read can do better than this Gossip Girl retread. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6487-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Categories: TEEN FICTION | TEEN ROMANCE | TEEN FAMILY
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A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: TEEN FICTION | TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN ROMANCE
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The victory of Jacob and his fellow peculiars over the previous episode’s wights and hollowgasts turns out to be only one move in a larger game as Riggs (Tales of the Peculiar, 2016, etc.) shifts the scene to America.
Reading largely as a setup for a new (if not exactly original) story arc, the tale commences just after Jacob’s timely rescue from his decidedly hostile parents. Following aimless visits back to newly liberated Devil’s Acre and perfunctory normalling lessons for his magically talented friends, Jacob eventually sets out on a road trip to find and recruit Noor, a powerful but imperiled young peculiar of Asian Indian ancestry. Along the way he encounters a semilawless patchwork of peculiar gangs, syndicates, and isolated small communities—many at loggerheads, some in the midst of negotiating a tentative alliance with the Ymbryne Council, but all threatened by the shadowy Organization. The by-now-tangled skein of rivalries, romantic troubles, and family issues continues to ravel amid bursts of savage violence and low comedy (“I had never seen an invisible person throw up before,” Jacob writes, “and it was something I won’t soon forget”). A fresh set of found snapshots serves, as before, to add an eldritch atmosphere to each set of incidents. The cast defaults to white but includes several people of color with active roles.
Not much forward momentum but a tasty array of chills, thrills, and chortles. (Horror/Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3214-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Categories: TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL | TEEN FICTION
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