Learning to love her whole disabled self is the greatest challenge for the protagonist of this novel.
In free verse, a girl explores the social dislocation of an Ehlers-Danlos syndrome diagnosis.
Sixteen-year-old Natalie has missed tons of school since her surgeries. Nobody at school knows about her diagnosis, but nobody can miss that much school without starting rumors. But though she wants to remain invisible and unnoticed, that will be impossible when she’s going from class to class in her new motorized wheelchair. Luckily Natalie has an unexpected ally in her quest to be a “normal” girl. After the school principal denies her the necessary accommodations, Natalie grits her teeth, hides her wheelchair every day, and pretends to be “normal.” It’s not until she meets Riley, a wheelchair-using classmate, that Natalie begins to be open to visibility. Her friendship with Riley has its ups and downs, as Riley, a passionate disability activist, doesn’t have much patience for Natalie’s internalized ableism. Fairly pedestrian verse does no harm to Natalie’s journey from self-loathing to enthusiastic and joyful action. The real villain to defeat isn’t the cartoonishly petty school administrator, it’s internalized shame. Natalie only mentions the skin color of non-White people, reinforcing the White default for her and other characters; Riley has brown skin.
Learning to love her whole disabled self is the greatest challenge for the protagonist of this novel. (Verse novel. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-978595-45-3
Page Count: 200
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre.
Survival camp? How can you not have bad feelings about that?
Sixteen-year-old nerd (or geek, but not dork) Henry Lambert has no desire to go to Strongwoods Survival Camp. His father thinks it might help Henry man up and free him of some of his odd phobias. Randy, Henry’s best friend since kindergarten, is excited at the prospect of going thanks to the camp’s promotional YouTube video, so Henry relents. When they arrive at the shabby camp in the middle of nowhere and meet the possibly insane counselor (and only staff member), Max, Henry’s bad feelings multiply. Max tries to train his five campers with a combination of carrot and stick, but the boys are not athletes, let alone survivalists. When a trio of gangsters drops in on the camp Games to try to collect the debt owed by the owner, the boys suddenly have to put their skills to the test. Too bad they don’t have any—at all. Strand’s summer-camp farce is peopled with sarcastic losers who’re chatty and wry. It’s often funny, and the gags turn in unexpected directions and would do Saturday Night Live skits proud. However, the story’s flow is hampered by an unnecessary and completely unfunny frame that takes place during the premier of the movie the boys make of their experience. The repeated intrusions bring the narrative to a screeching halt.
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8455-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In an unnamed country (a thinly veiled Philippines), three teenage boys pick trash for a meager living. A bag of cash in the trash might be—well, not their ticket out of poverty but at least a minor windfall. With 1,100 pesos, maybe they can eat chicken occasionally, instead of just rice. Gardo and Raphael are determined not to give any of it to the police who've been sniffing around, so they enlist their friend Rat. In alternating and tightly paced points of view, supplemented by occasional other voices, the boys relate the intrigue in which they're quickly enmeshed. A murdered houseboy, an orphaned girl, a treasure map, a secret code, corrupt politicians and 10,000,000 missing dollars: It all adds up to a cracker of a thriller. Sadly, the setting relies on Third World poverty tourism for its flavor, as if this otherwise enjoyable caper were being told by Olivia, the story's British charity worker who muses with vacuous sentimentality on the children that "break your heart" and "change your life." Nevertheless, a zippy and classic briefcase-full-of-money thrill ride. (Thriller. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-75214-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
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