by Amy Andelson & Emily Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 30, 2018
Readers looking for a guilty-pleasure 1-percent read can do better than this Gossip Girl retread.
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. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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by Jerry Spinelli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 3, 2021
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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by Jerry Spinelli ; illustrated by Larry Day
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by Jerry Spinelli ; illustrated by LeUyen Pham
by Marie Lu ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 29, 2011
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
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
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