Insecure girl meets mean girl—and learns to be herself—in this appealing tale.
In this YA novel, a student discovers that honesty is indeed the best policy.
It’s the beginning of summer, and Sara Hawthorne, a high school freshman, joins a club called the Fearless Foursome in hopes of becoming popular. She and her fellow club members—trouble-making, boy crazy Laurel Atwater; studious Adalynn Stevenson; and Sara’s best friend, Ella Taylor—have their first official meeting and sleepover at Ella’s house. After receiving a mysterious note, the girls sneak out of the house around midnight to meet a group of popular jocks—aka the Warriors. Unfortunately, one of the guys falls and breaks his leg. The boy gets help, but a policeman escorts the girls back to Ella’s house—and two angry parents. The next day, Ella’s mother informs Sara that she must tell her parents what happened. Unable to bring herself to confess, Sara is in agony. To make matters worse, Ella and Adalynn are hanging around with big mouth Laurel all the time. One bright spot in Sara’s life is one of the Warriors, Matt, who seems to like her a lot. And while volunteering at the zoo, she meets a new friend, Kristen, who’s too busy being herself to care about being popular. Nelan’s fast-paced novel is packed with perfectly cute characters and young teen angst—when Matt goes on a family vacation for two whole weeks, conniving Laurel follows him. For the most part, the dialogue flows smoothly and realistically portrays teen anxieties. For example, while talking to Sara, Kristen exclaims: “I’ll probably go all through high school without a boyfriend, so I might as well enjoy it when it happens to my only friend!” Though Laurel is supposed to be the bad girl, Sara is not very thoughtful herself—she lies to Kristen and ditches her party to attend Ella’s bash. Later, Sara regrets her choice. A sweet side story is the special relationship the teen has with her grandmother.
Insecure girl meets mean girl—and learns to be herself—in this appealing tale.Pub Date: May 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-973657-69-9
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
While it fails to reinvent the genre, this action-packed ride through a grim but fascinating world should delight fans of...
A power-hungry government controls the populace through music, and one young woman accepts the formidable task of saving her family and helping to kick-start a revolution in this dystopian YA adventure.
Hanson’s debut novel, the first in a planned trilogy, takes place in the walled-off, steampunk city of Revinia, where all the inhabitants have devices called Singers implanted in their ears at birth. The machines ensure obedience to Revinia’s ruler, The Conductor, by transmitting a form of mental and emotional control called The Music. The heroine, Ronja, has been branded a Mutt, the lowest rung on the social ladder. She works as a driver on the underground train system, struggling to keep her ailing mother and two young cousins afloat. Destiny comes calling when she accepts a courier’s job, delivering a mysterious package to a member of an underground enclave of freedom fighters known as The Anthem. Among them, she learns, “Everything you have ever felt besides strict loyalty—love of a partner, hate of an enemy, terror, excitement, anxiety—all are muted by The Music. Every time your passions spike, they are beat down. You have lived your life shackled to a weightless iron ball.” Freed from her Singer, Ronja joins forces with Roark, one of the leaders of the Resistance, to convince her family to join the group and thwart The Conductor’s plan to unleash an even more crippling form of The Music upon the citizens of Revinia. The central premise of music as a mechanism of control works well here, and the plot moves at a snappy pace, introducing distinctive new characters nimbly throughout while adding shades of detail to more familiar ones. Ronja’s journey to adapt to a life as a rebel fighter while negotiating the repressed memories that emerge following the removal of her Singer is captivating and memorable. Although the protagonist’s evolution from guttersnipe to superhero in the novel’s last quarter feels like quite a sudden leap, it makes for supremely fun reading.
While it fails to reinvent the genre, this action-packed ride through a grim but fascinating world should delight fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent and leave many waiting impatiently for the sequel.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-56983-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Calida Lux Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Exciting, well-written, and thoughtfully humane, this YA adventure should win many fans.
A teenage boy from Kashmir embarks on a quest to retrieve powerful objects for the elephant-headed god Ganesha in this debut fantasy tale.
YA fantasy novels based on Christian, Norse, Celtic, or Greco-Roman sources are legion, from the Narnia books to the Percy Jackson series. Less easy to find are stories drawing on Hindu myth and religion—a gap that this book helps fill. Fourteen-year-old Tarun Sharma lives in Srinigar, in politically unstable Kashmir, with his older brother, mother, and father, who is Kashmir’s chief minister. On the closing day of a festival celebrating the four-armed deity Ganesha, rebels set off a bomb among the revelers, then kidnap Tarun and his mother. The culprits’ truck crashes in the mountains; Tarun escapes, finding his way to a cave. Waiting for him is Ganesha, who needs Tarun’s help to journey to the Veiled Lands and regain three stolen, hidden mystical objects: the deity’s sacred ax, rope, and broken tusk. Recovering them will restore the god’s powers, reunite Tarun’s family, and “end the civil war both inside the Veiled Lands and in Kashmir.” As Tarun faces down dangers and difficulties, he gains new and powerful abilities, earning a place in the continuing fight against evil. Gaur writes a rousing, well-paced adventure story. Though the structure is familiar—a quest giver, three tasks, coming-of-age—in Gaur’s hands, it never feels stale. The tasks provide excellent settings for Tarun to test his wits and courage, show his mettle, and learn more of the Veiled Lands. In Candeuil, for example, Tarun notices the mountain city’s many carved rams’ heads: “Images of bighorn sheep had even been placed on every tenth cobblestone that lined the edge of the roadway. It gave the city an artistic unity.” More than that, the cobblestones turn out to help Tarun in his search. The novel’s ecumenical spirit is generous and intriguing, with hints of a worldwide (not India-specific) battle going on, such as a teenage girl’s mission to recover objects stolen from Gitche Manitou, the Algonquian Great Spirit.
Exciting, well-written, and thoughtfully humane, this YA adventure should win many fans.Pub Date: April 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-66378-3
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Rohit Gaur Studios
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
