It’s hard to get invested in a love story when one of the partners is an unknowable black hole
Two teens are set on a collision course with sexy results.
Nicolette Holland is on the run. She’s changed her name and her hair and fully intends to disappear as fast as possible. Jack Manx, son of a mob big shot, is blackmailed into finding Nicolette and making sure no one else does. The circumstances revolving around Nicolette’s importance are a bit blurry: Jack is told she murdered a girl connected to a powerful crime boss, but Nicolette doesn’t act like a murderer, and the police aren’t on her tail. The story unfolds with alternating chapters switching between Jack’s and Nicolette’s present-tense accounts, but the different perspectives offer little to the narrative. There are no tense cat-and-mouse sequences here; Jack just finds his mark with little trouble. When the pair cross paths there’s a sexual attraction that promises to give emotional texture to the mob drama, but each character is so guarded that little genuine heat arises. Jack and Nicolette are manic in their moods, going from loving to hating and back to loving each other, sometimes within the span of one or two pages. Neither character is particularly engaging: Jack is a stereotypical bad boy with a heart of gold, and the mysterious nature of Nicolette’s past crime keeps her at arm’s length.
It’s hard to get invested in a love story when one of the partners is an unknowable black hole . (Thriller. 14-16)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4393-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Skip.
The teenage detectives from The Amateurs (2016) return, sent on a chase by their adversary.
It’s three months after Seneca, Aerin, Maddox, and Madison discovered who killed Seneca’s mother and Aerin’s sister, but the escape of the killer—their former friend, Brett—is haunting them. Then Chelsea Dawson, an Instagram-obsessed white girl, disappears. The next day, the disappearance is inexplicably posted on Case Not Closed, a cold-case message board, with a post from Brett that draws the Amateurs’ suspicions. While biracial Seneca takes the lead in the investigation, torn between catching Brett and dealing with her confusing feelings for white boy Maddox, white girl Aerin is weepy and distracted by thoughts of her sister. Korean-American Madison barely registers in solving the case or with readers, and Maddox seems mostly concerned about how white boy Jeff, Chelsea’s ex and a suspect in her disappearance, is apparently putting the moves on Seneca. Throughout the novel, Brett is spinning his web to teach Chelsea a lesson and make the Amateurs realize they’re outclassed. While there’s enough back story to explain their first case, the immature and two-dimensional foursome are amateurs in both name and ability. Unlike the first, this so-called mystery is utterly lacking in suspense or tension, overflows with leaps of logic, and offers nothing to indicate the teen detectives are any match for Brett—a fatal flaw.
Skip. (Mystery. 14-16)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-4228-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Freeform/Disney
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unsurprising and overlong.
Romance blossoms across class lines.
Even though he didn’t commit the crime he was accused of, Drix—short for Hendrix—has spent 10 months (confusingly and frequently called a year) in a special program to end the school-to-prison pipeline, started by the governor as part of his bid for the U.S. Senate. Elle, full name Ellison, is the governor’s daughter, expected by her ultracontrolling parents to be a perfect blue-eyed blonde political accessory. After a meet-cute with looming menace, the two white teens are drawn to each other. Drix knows Elle deserves the best, aka better than him (a confusing mirror of her parents’ attitude), and dating her could destroy his second chance. Elle doesn’t think so, and throughout the overstuffed, repetitious narrative, she works to change Drix’s mind and prove to her parents she is committed to her envisioned future as a coder. Their romance is put to the test when Drix discovers who truly committed the crime he did the time for and Elle tries to intercede. Although the perils of the school-to-prison pipeline and life in politics are constantly told, they are rarely shown, causing little emotional impact. Further undercutting the romance is Elle’s petulant naiveté, which jars against Drix’s didactic approach.
Unsurprising and overlong. (Romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-373-21237-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
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