A sweet tale of life and love after death, offered like a hug to grieving readers.
A teenage girl in a purgatorial afterlife works to solve her own murder.
Seventeen-year-old salon (most of the text, including names, is uncapitalized) floats above her own body and realizes she’s dead—there’s a tag on her toe that “says office of the coroner, plainsville nj”—but she can’t remember what happened. Soon she’s mystically whisked away to the NIB, or the nowhere in between, a small-scale purgatory similar to a halfway house or boarding school, complete with bunk beds and group therapy. Her guide is the mysterious liv (on-the-nose names proliferate), but conflict arises after salon recognizes liv from the show girls gone missing. salon, a lover of true crime, suspects there’s a connection between their cases; liv doesn’t want to talk about her life or death at all. The book provides clues only when it’s most narratively convenient, but the warmth and feeling for salon and her mourners that the story evokes carries the book to a sincere conclusion that is earned. Pale, blond salon and most other characters present white, and liv is coded Latine. The portrayal of salon and liv’s tentative romance is tender. In her author’s note, energy therapist Scher, who’s written nonfiction titles such as How To Heal Yourself When No One Else Can (2016), says she wrote this book in the wake of family members’ deaths, and an empathetic understanding of grief suffuses each page.
A sweet tale of life and love after death, offered like a hug to grieving readers. (Paranormal. 14-18)Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781915585554
Page Count: 337
Publisher: Tiny Ghost Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
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
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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