Myers (The Keeping Room, 1997, etc.) returns to the red-dirt section of Oklahoma, exploring the line between inspiration and madness. Clare, who plans to attend college, and Liz, who is passionate about dance, have never seen a boy like Ethan Bennington in Collins Creek, Oklahoma. Most of the boys in their 1960s oil company camp are interested in hot cars and their future jobs in the oil fields. Newcomer Ethan, handsome and sensitive, plays the piano beautifully and is easy to talk to. While Liz is away for the summer, Clare grows close to Ethan. She can’t understand why Ethan’s parents frown on his music until he tells her that he’s been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and has spent time in a mental hospital for confessing that he hears the voice of and sees a 19th-century composer, Friedrich, who knew Brahms, died young, and wants his own composition, Forest Concerto, written down. When Liz returns and school starts, Clare keeps the details of Ethan’s past from her; Liz discovers Ethan’s secret in Clare’s diary and, feeling shut out by her best friend for the first time since kindergarten, spreads the information around their small school. With strong characterizations, believable dialogue, a fresh setting, and a complex web of relationships, Myers writes provocatively about the intriguing subject of genius and creativity. Readers will only wish the discussion, curtailed abruptly when Ethan heroically attempts to save a retarded girl in a fire, could have been brought to a more prosaic, less explosive, ending. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8027-8670-7
Page Count: 153
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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