Hilarious and harrowing by turns, Koss tells the story of an artistic 14-year-old girl whose garden-variety life goes bizarre when she’s diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Suddenly, she’s dealing with the alien world of the hospital, while finding that her cancer has made her a social alien in high school. Not that she has much time for socializing; she’s too busy throwing up from the chemotherapy and then too exhausted to care. The secondary characters, such as the heroine’s constantly crying, yet there-for-her-daughter mom, her loyal and gallant best friend and her honest and irritated little brother, ring true, as does the gallows humor and dead-on observations about hospital life. And the panoply of reactions from the heroine’s classmates as they cope with her cancer is simultaneously funny, anger inducing and astute. The plot is the situation—a girl contracts and is treated for the disease—and the happy ending is somewhat abrupt, but the telling is precisely voiced, funny and genuine, giving the reader a multifaceted look at a devastating experience. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59643-167-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
Marisa is in her first year of high school, a little overweight and always ready to pick a fight. After punching her best friend’s cheating boyfriend in an elevator, she gets home to find she has someone else’s cell phone—and realizes she must have switched phones with the nerdy kid who was in the elevator with them. When she meets Rene, she immediately notices his white socks and flood pants, and yet, she can’t help wanting to hang around him. It’s a first romance for both, and their efforts to change themselves and each other are touching and funny. There’s a sweet and light touch to this love story—a lot of cuddly kissing, no heavy petting—keeping this squarely on the younger end of pre-teen (despite the older-looking cover). Set at two urban schools—one tougher, one suburban—and with Latino families (a glossary in the back will help those unfamiliar with Spanish words), this story offers readers much to identify with. Nothing terribly deep here, but it fills a gap in middle-school–age collections with something fresh and fun. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-15-205497-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
Eddie, a young Mexican-American scraping by in the mean streets of Fresno, California, counts four dead relatives and one dead friend in the opening, in-your-face lines of this new novel from Soto (Snapshots from the Wedding, p. 228, etc.). In bleak sentences of whispered beauty, Eddie tells how he dropped out of vocational college and is attempting to get by with odd jobs. His aunt and friends want him to avenge the recent murder of his cousin, but Eddie just wants to find a way out. Everything he tries turns soura stint doing yard work ends when his boss's truck is stolen on Eddie's watchand life is a daily battle for survival. This unrelenting portrait is unsparing in squalid details: The glue sniffers, gangs, bums, casual knifings, filth, and stench are in the forefront of a life without much hope``Laundry wept from the lines, the faded flags of poor, ignorant, unemployable people.'' Soto plays the tale straightthe only sign of a ``happy'' ending is in Eddie's joining the Navy. The result is a sort of Fresno Salaam Bombay without the pockets of humanity that gave the original its charm. A valuable tale, it's one that makes no concessions. (glossary) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-201333-4
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
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