A fresh, insightful, inspiring take on what it means to come out.
Not your average boarding school drama.
Seventeen-year-old, New Hampshire–farm–raised, proud Czech-American Ben Carver has just been elected the captain of posh, private Natick School’s famed baseball team in his junior year. He’s also been told by the headmaster that he’s next in line to win the school’s coveted scholarship—awarded to only one Natick student annually. (Like his teammates, Ben is white; unlike them, he’s not “exceedingly wealthy.”) He's a huge history buff; he's kind. He's also struggling between what he feels versus what he yearns to feel. Earlier in the year he experienced an intense, romantic connection with his best friend, Rafe, that still haunts him. However, when he meets an outspoken student from the nearby all-female academy, he thinks he can finally dampen the sparks Rafe ignites. Maybe. Konigsberg's latest is full of heart. Not only is Ben fully fleshed with an honest, admirable set of emotions and principles, he's also 6 feet 2 inches and muscled—exactly the kind of protagonist that readers will be drooling over. Every other character is rendered in the same thoughtful way—even the douchebags have hearts. The plot unfolds naturally from Ben's point of view, and despite a somewhat forced ending it still ends on a high. Packed with literary references, pranks, heady conversations, humor, honesty, and tribulation, this is one that will be remembered.
A fresh, insightful, inspiring take on what it means to come out. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-85826-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst.
When a calamitous drought overtakes southern California, a group of teens must struggle to keep their lives and their humanity in this father-son collaboration.
When the Tap-Out hits and the state’s entire water supply runs dry, 16-year-old Alyssa Morrow and her little brother, Garrett, ration their Gatorade and try to be optimistic. That is, until their parents disappear, leaving them completely alone. Their neighbor Kelton McCracken was born into a survivalist family, but what use is that when it’s his family he has to survive? Kelton is determined to help Alyssa and Garrett, but with desperation comes danger, and he must lead them and two volatile new acquaintances on a perilous trek to safety and water. Occasionally interrupted by “snapshots” of perspectives outside the main plot, the narrative’s intensity steadily rises as self-interest turns deadly and friends turn on each other. No one does doom like Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead, 2018, etc.)—the breathtakingly jagged brink of apocalypse is only overshadowed by the sense that his dystopias lie just below the surface of readers’ fragile reality, a few thoughtless actions away. He and his debut novelist son have crafted a world of dark thirst and fiery desperation, which, despite the tendrils of hope that thread through the conclusion, feels alarmingly near to our future. There is an absence of racial markers, leaving characters’ identities open.
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst. (Thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8196-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
Several yards short of a touchdown.
A transgender boy starting over at a new school falls hard for a popular cheerleader with a reputation to protect in this debut.
On the first day of senior year, transgender boy Pony locks eyes with cisgender cheerleader Georgia. They both have pasts they want to leave behind. No one at Hillcrest High knows that Pony is transgender, and he intends to keep it that way. Georgia’s last boyfriend shook her trust in boys, and now she’s determined to forget him. As mutual attraction draws them together, Pony and Georgia must decide what they are willing to risk for a relationship. Pony’s best friend, Max, who is also transgender, disapproves of Pony’s choice to live stealth; this disagreement leads to serious conflict in their relationship. Meanwhile, Georgia and Pony behave as if Pony’s trans identity was a secret he was lying to her about rather than private information for him to share of his own volition. The characters only arrive at a hopeful resolution after Pony pays high physical and emotional prices. McSmith places repeated emphasis on the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative when the characters discuss trans identities. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main characters are white.
Several yards short of a touchdown. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294317-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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