However, its warmth and enthusiasm more than make up for its small oversights.
Just before their freshman year at Gila High, Abbey and her best friend, Kate, are warned by Kate's older sister, Jenn, that the basketball team is full of “lezzies.”
Despite promising Kate that she “will never try out for basketball or be friends with those you-know-who girls,” Abbey starts the year secretly crushed out on a girl she meets at a food court and is quickly scooped up by Garrett and Stef, sophomore basketball players and out lesbians. She soon learns about Gila High's tangled web of lesbian relationships, including Stef's involvement with Keeta, Abbey's increasingly flirtatious crush. Over the first few months of the year, Abbey joins the junior varsity basketball team and becomes involved with Keeta behind Stef's back, despite her new friends' warnings that Keeta is bad news. Abbey's well-rendered narrative voice easily conveys the joy of discovering new friends and the deliciousness of illicit kisses, as well as her fears about her old friends and her mom finding out. The cast, appropriately for the Tuscon setting, is ethnically diverse, and Keeta's frequent Spanglish comes across as dreamy without being exoticized. The story isn't completely polished—for instance, Abbey once recalls an incident that doesn't actually appear in the text.
However, its warmth and enthusiasm more than make up for its small oversights. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60282-754-7
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship.
A battered girl and an injured rugby star spark up an ill-advised romance at an Irish secondary school.
Beautiful, waiflike, 15-year-old Shannon has lived her entire life in Ballylaggin. Alternately bullied at school and beaten by her ne’er-do-well father, she’s hopeful for a fresh start at Tommen, a private school. Seventeen-year-old Johnny, who has a hair-trigger temper and a severe groin injury, is used to Dublin’s elite-level rugby but, since his family’s move to County Cork, is now stuck captaining Tommen’s middling team. When Johnny angrily kicks a ball and knocks Shannon unconscious (“a soft female groan came from her lips”), a tentative relationship is born. As the two grow closer, Johnny’s past and Shannon’s present become serious obstacles to their budding love, threatening Shannon’s safety. Shannon’s portrayal feels infantilized (“I looked down at the tiny little female under my arm”), while Johnny comes across as borderline obsessive (“I knew I shouldn’t be touching her, but how the hell could I not?”). Uneven pacing and choppy sentences lead to a sudden climax and an unsatisfyingly abrupt ending. Repetitive descriptions, abundant and misogynistic dialogue (Johnny, to his best friend: “who’s the bitch with a vagina now?”), and graphic violence also weigh down this lengthy tome (considerably trimmed down from its original, self-published length). The cast of lively, well-developed supporting characters, especially Johnny’s best friend and Shannon’s protective older brother, is a bright spot. Major characters read white.
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship. (author’s note, pronunciations, glossary, song moments, playlists) (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781728299945
Page Count: 626
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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