A moving and authentic portrait of a memorable, complex teen.
In Barkley’s YA novel, a teenage girl reckons with loss.
Sixteen-year-old Zara (high school junior, machine-fixer-upper, coffee fanatic) is the sole projectionist at the Palace, an old-time movie theater. She still feels like an outsider in the tourist town of Carolina Beach five years after moving there with her mom and famous sportswriter father. Her mother’s subsequent death from cancer and her father’s retreat behind a wall of unexpressed emotions have left Zara grieving the loss of both parents. Does everyone you love “just slip away,” she wonders, “no matter how hard you hold on to them? Is that what the future is?” The only future Zara sees is “myself still, always, in the booth at the Palace, showing movies in the dark.” Alone in her projection booth, the introspective Zara changes reels by hand, continually rewatching low-budget horror and SF movies and doing “the whole Zen-Loner thing. Lots of self-talk. Silence. Contemplation in the plywood booth,” fueled by a regimen of push-ups and coffee. Outside, “fragments of summer fun blow around in scraps—plastic cups, old Boardwalk Fries buckets flattened and dirty.” Inside, summer patrons (“oldsters, drinkers, vacationers, and hipsters”) have given way to locals and a boy her age named Zachary who pops uninvited into her booth. Zachary, who is loving, soulful, goofy, and sad, lives in a fairground trailer with his grandfather, a former carnival strongman; the boy harbors a secret, and a disturbing action and a lie leave Zara struggling to understand Zachary and herself. Barkley explores the ways in which human connections can complicate and profoundly change our lives with deep sensitivity. Self-sufficient, spiky, and deeply observant, Zara is the unforgettable heart of this richly textured novel. Over a few eventful months, in a memorable setting of eccentricities with a tinge of real-world darkness, Zara’s journey beyond the limits of her grief and frustration is deftly conveyed through the resonant evolution of her internal dialogue as she learns to let go and let love in.
A moving and authentic portrait of a memorable, complex teen.Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9781646037230
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Fitzroy Books
Review Posted Online: today
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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