Readers who’ve logged plenty of Disney Channel hours should enjoy this inside look at celebrity life
It’s the ultimate chick-lit romp when a teen movie star finds herself cast with two of the hottest young actors around.
Emma has been having serious bad luck with cheating boyfriends, with all the drama publicized in the celebrity media. She despairs of ever finding true romance. The problem: She’s had a long-distance crush on famous actor Brett for years, but she’s instantly attracted to Jake, a male model whom her best friend back home in Arkansas, Rachel, has been crushing on. Now Emma, Brett and Jake will work together on a new TV series that promises plenty of on-screen romance. In real life, Jake turns out to be down-to-earth and quite nice. Though she’s lost interest in Brett, the paparazzi manage to keep catching them in seemingly romantic encounters. While the world thinks she’s in love with Brett, her relationship with Jake steams up behind the scenes. And when Rachel visits, expecting Emma to set her up with Jake, the pot really starts to boil. Finnegan divides the chapters between Emma and Jake, keeping the plot moving at a good clip. Emma and Jake come across as attractive not just in looks, but in personality too, and the rest of the cast provides spice.
Readers who’ve logged plenty of Disney Channel hours should enjoy this inside look at celebrity life . (Chick-lit romance. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61963-397-1
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod.
Can a 17-year-old with her first girlfriend prevent real-life folks from discovering her online fandoms?
Cass is proudly queer, happily fat, and extremely secretive about being a fan who role-plays on Discord. Back in middle school, she had what she calls a gaming addiction, playing “The Sims” so much her parents had to take the game away. Now, turning to her role-play friends to cope with her fighting parents, she worries that people will judge her for her fannishness and online life. To be fair, her grades are suffering. And sure, maybe she’s missed a college application deadline. Also, her mom has suddenly left Minneapolis and moved to Maine to be with a man she met online. But on the other hand, Cass is finally dating her amazingly cute longtime crush, Taylor. Pansexual Taylor is a gamer, a little bit punk, White like Cass, and so, so great—but she still can’t help comparing her to Rowan, Cass’ online best friend and role-playing ship partner. But Rowan doesn’t want to be a dirty little secret and doesn’t see why Cass can’t be honest about this part of her life. The inevitable train wreck of her lies looms on the horizon for months in an overlong morality play building to the climax that includes tidy resolutions to all the character arcs that are quite heartwarming but, in the case of Cass’ estranged mother, narratively unearned.
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-324332-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful.
January 1945: as Russians advance through East Prussia, four teens’ lives converge in hopes of escape.
Returning to the successful formula of her highly lauded debut, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys combines research (described in extensive backmatter) with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. Told in four alternating voices—Lithuanian nurse Joana, Polish Emilia, Prussian forger Florian, and German soldier Alfred—with often contemporary cadences, this stints on neither history nor fiction. The three sympathetic refugees and their motley companions (especially an orphaned boy and an elderly shoemaker) make it clear that while the Gustloff was a German ship full of German civilians and soldiers during World War II, its sinking was still a tragedy. Only Alfred, stationed on the Gustloff, lacks sympathy; almost a caricature, he is self-delusional, unlikable, a Hitler worshiper. As a vehicle for exposition, however, and a reminder of Germany’s role in the war, he serves an invaluable purpose that almost makes up for the mustache-twirling quality of his petty villainy. The inevitability of the ending (including the loss of several characters) doesn’t change its poignancy, and the short chapters and slowly revealed back stories for each character guarantee the pages keep turning.
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful. (author’s note, research and sources, maps) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16030-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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