A skillfully written and appealing romance with a powerful and refreshing message.
This year, Madeline’s Renaissance faire summer is one of new friendships, budding romance, and self-discovery.
Growing up with parents who work the Ren faire circuit, traveling around the country in an RV and going to online school, Madeline lived in a warm bubble until her mother’s death last year. When she and her dad arrive in Oklahoma, she meets teen bard Arthur, who happens to be the son of the faire’s new owners—and is determined that she play the role of princess. Still grieving and guarding herself against potential pain, Madeline tries to hold Arthur at a distance despite their day trip adventures, vulnerable conversations, and magnetic chemistry. This is a welcome modern coming-of-age story about unfolding, letting go, and growing up. Madeline is initially self-conscious and hyperaware of her larger size, but Schumacher eschews storylines in which fat characters end up slim and transformed. Madeline learns that she deserves to take up space and appreciate her body as it is without shedding (or wanting to shed) a single pound. All the relationships are complex and nuanced, including those between Madeline and her father, her newfound friends, and her closest friend, Fatima. Madeline and Arthur read White; Arthur’s dads are in an interracial relationship, and there is diversity in the supporting cast. Readers will welcome this story about a leading lady who doesn’t have to be skinny to love herself or to be loved.
A skillfully written and appealing romance with a powerful and refreshing message. (Romance. 12-17)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-84024-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.
Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.
Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play. (glossary) (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A meditation on a timely subject that never forgets to put its characters and their stories first
An Afghani-Australian teen named Mina earns a scholarship to a prestigious private school and meets Michael, whose family opposes allowing Muslim refugees and immigrants into the country.
Dual points of view are presented in this moving and intelligent contemporary novel set in Australia. Eleventh-grader Mina is smart and self-possessed—her mother and stepfather (her biological father was murdered in Afghanistan) have moved their business and home across Sydney in order for her to attend Victoria College. She’s determined to excel there, even though being surrounded by such privilege is a culture shock for her. When she meets white Michael, the two are drawn to each other even though his close-knit, activist family espouses a political viewpoint that, though they insist it is merely pragmatic, is unquestionably Islamophobic. Tackling hard topics head-on, Abdel-Fattah explores them fully and with nuance. True-to-life dialogue and realistic teen social dynamics both deepen the tension and provide levity. While Mina and Michael’s attraction seems at first unlikely, the pair’s warmth wins out, and readers will be swept up in their love story and will come away with a clearer understanding of how bias permeates the lives of those targeted by it.
A meditation on a timely subject that never forgets to put its characters and their stories first . (Fiction. 12-17)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-11866-7
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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