A thrilling, adventure-filled story that captures the anguish of losing a friend.
California teens reunite to chase the memory of a dead friend.
Five years ago, when Nick Cline was only 11-years-old, he accidentally shot and killed 15-year-old Marley Bricket. Olivia Stanton idolized Marley, who was her older sister’s best friend and the leader of their group. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Olivia is even more consumed with thoughts about Marley, carrying her memory everywhere she goes. And after all these years it seems Nick—who has returned to town—feels the same way. The two soon uncover clues Marley has left for them to follow, and they gather the kids of Albany Lane to search for answers, closure, and perhaps even redemption. Olivia is an unreliable narrator and a manipulative individual who appears motivated by a desire to gain the power which Marley once lorded over her friends. Readers will enjoy the romance, dark humor, and bicycle-squad nostalgia as they move through an eerie and dangerous scavenger hunt. The uncertainty and suspense lead to questions of whether what’s unfolding is a ghost story or an elaborate suicide. The well-paced story offers an authentic exploration of grief, but the elaborate deceptions detract from readers’ ability to connect to that experience. Olivia, Nick, and Marley are white; there is diversity in secondary characters who are Latinx, Korean-American, black, and lesbian.
A thrilling, adventure-filled story that captures the anguish of losing a friend. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: June 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7098-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Refreshing and moving: avoids easy answers and saviors from the outside.
From Sudan to Maine, in free verse.
It's 1999 in Juba, and the second Sudanese civil war is in full swing. Viola is a Bari girl, and she lives every day in fear of the government soldiers occupying her town. In brief free-verse chapters, Viola makes Juba real: the dusty soil, the memories of sweetened condensed milk, the afternoons Viola spends braiding her cousin's hair. But there is more to Juba than family and hunger; there are the soldiers, and the danger, and the horrifying interactions with soldiers that Viola doesn't describe but only lets the reader infer. As soon as possible, Viola's mother takes the family to Cairo and then to Portland, Maine—but they won't all make it. First one and then another family member is brought down by the devastating war and famine. After such a journey, the culture shock in Portland is unsurprisingly overwhelming. "Portland to New York: 234 miles, / New York to Cairo: 5,621 miles, / Cairo to Juba: 1,730 miles." Viola tries to become an American girl, with some help from her Sudanese friends, a nice American boy and the requisite excellent teacher. But her mother, like the rest of the Sudanese elders, wants to run her home as if she were back in Juba, and the inevitable conflict is heartbreaking.
Refreshing and moving: avoids easy answers and saviors from the outside. (historical note) (Fiction. 13-15)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7614-6267-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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