K-pop helps a cellist develop musically and emotionally in this novel filled with humor and theatrics.
A driven young woman learns to balance expectations and priorities with heart and passion.
A vivid, comical scene of everyday life in Koreatown introduces narrator Jenny Jooyoung Go, a high school junior and classical cellist aiming for a top conservatory. While her single-minded focus yields technical perfection, competition judges deem Jenny lacking in soulful spark. Her Uncle Jay advises her to experience more of life and broaden her horizons. An opportunity soon beckons, and the plot unfolds like a minidrama amid the Los Angeles Korean Festival, launching Jenny and her new acquaintance, Jaewoo, on an accidental adventure that foreshadows romance. When her mom, a widowed immigration lawyer, needs to return to Seoul to care for her dying mother, Jenny negotiates to go along for her first visit to Korea. Attending Seoul Arts Academy, Jenny witnesses the institutional grooming of K-pop idols—including (surprise!) classmate Jaewoo, who, as it turns out, is popular band XOXO’s lead singer. She also shares in the student performers’ duty-bound lives: Behind the glamour, they are burdened with obligations to their communities that can require sacrifice of their personal happiness. Themes of responsibility, regret, and reconciliation weave through the intergenerational dynamics in Jenny’s family, adding dimension and depth. The author incorporates Korean honorifics to convey a conversational tone and signal dialogue occurring in both languages.
K-pop helps a cellist develop musically and emotionally in this novel filled with humor and theatrics. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-302499-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Packed to the brim with intrigue and the promise of a third installment.
A rebel queen fans the sparks of revolution.
Picking up immediately after the events of Ash Princess (2018), Sebastian’s expansive sequel finds young Queen Theodosia—her title newly reclaimed—fleeing her country and throne. With her people still enslaved, Theo will need allies and an army to free them, and her aunt, the fierce and manipulative pirate Dragonsbane, insists that the only way to acquire either is if Theo marries—something no queen has ever done in Astrea’s history. Wracked by nightmares, guilt, and fear that she is losing herself (and more), Theo balks but, with few options open to her, grudgingly agrees to meet with suitors at a grand invitational hosted by the king of the opulent Sta’Crivero. Readers looking for further immersion and expansion of Theo’s world will not be disappointed here. The narrative suffers marginally from lengthy details picked up and soon put back down with no real service to plot or character development, but Theo’s first-person narration remains enthralling with emotional immediacy as she learns more and more about her world and the people (and cruelty) within it. Vengeance, political corruption, and mystery are the main drivers, and questions of trauma, empathy, and sacrifice hold the reigns as Theo grapples with emergent magic, inconvenient romances, and the crushing weight of her choices as a leader.
Packed to the brim with intrigue and the promise of a third installment. (maps) (Fantasy. 14-17)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6710-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Lacks any real substance.
Kemmerer’s dual-narrative romance ponders the path of fate versus blazing one’s own trail.
Juliet’s photographer mother died several months ago, and every week since, she’s been writing letters to her mother and leaving them at her graveside. Declan, the local bad boy, is sentenced to community service as a cemetery caretaker for drunkenly crashing his incarcerated father’s truck. When Declan replies anonymously to one of Juliet’s letters, Juliet writes back, and the two begin an exchange about fate and free will. The two inevitably meet in person, not knowing they have been revealing their deepest secrets to each other via pen and paper. During their in-person interactions, Juliet is attracted to this potentially violent outcast and “intense” but vulnerable soul, and he’s extremely rude to her, a behavior that moderates as pages turn but is not fully corrected. Sadly, Juliet lets him make her feel shame and guilt for the things she says. In his letters and, eventually, emails to her, he invalidates her feelings, causing her to second-guess herself, all of this unfurling in chapters that alternate narration. Despite the tragedies in their lives, neither teen is sympathetic; they possess too much self-pity and anger and act accordingly, and as a result they are unlikable. Both principals are white; Declan’s community-service supervisor is Latino, and his white best friend’s adoptive parents are black, and one main secondary character is Asian.
Lacks any real substance. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68119-008-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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