A tear-jerker that fails to connect despite desperate effort.
Tragedy hovers over a blossoming romance.
Brazilian-American Sebastian “Bash” Alvaréz is just trying to get by when he meets the nerdy, white Birdie Paxton. The two spark up some romantic fire, but disaster quickly strikes. Late one night, Bash and his ne’er-do-well pal “Wild” Kyle are driving erratically (Kyle is at the wheel) and slam right into Birdie’s baby brother, Benny. The boys flee the scene, while Benny slips into a coma and the town begins to hunt for the perpetrators of the hit-and-run. Bash keeps his secret from Birdie as they grow closer, and readers will roll their eyes at the excessive misery. The author gives Bash a dying mother to balance out the equation, but the choice overloads the devastation factor. With everything emotional and awful and crazy and turned up to 11, nothing really sticks out. The two moping, guilt-ridden protagonists are drawn well enough—they alternate narration—but seem to be stuck in a narrative hell bent on getting readers to cry. Secondary characters are poorly sketched, given no interior life, and merely activated to interact with Birdie and Bash. The novel’s end is disproportionately sunny and hopeful, giving readers tonal whiplash. A last-minute Hail Mary act gets the teens out of the narrative corner, but it feels spectacularly tacked-on.
A tear-jerker that fails to connect despite desperate effort. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-11622-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
The sudden death of her twin leaves a teenager struggling with grief and her fragile sense of self in this absorbing, inwardly focused import from Sweden, part fiction, part memoir. So close are the sisters that after Cilla is killed by a motorist Tina can still hear her voice, still see her just by looking in a mirror, still hold conversations; she even finds herself taking on some of Cilla’s character traits, seeking an inner balance that she has lost. Able to describe her experiences only by switching back and forth between third person and first, Tina observes the different ways those around her grieve, and finds temporary solace in many places: reading and writing poetry, performing on stage, playing her violin, trying a brief but intense fling at summer camp, even talking to a perceptive psychologist—but unlike many such stories, there is never any sense here that the authors are running through a catalog of coping strategies, or offering trite platitudes. A year later, Tina discovers that, in forming new friendships and moving on in life, she has passed the worst of her pain, and found ways to distance herself from Cilla without losing her completely. In a smooth, natural-sounding translation, this is a thoughtful, complex reminiscence. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: March 23, 1999
ISBN: 91-29-63935-2
Page Count: 247
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
Things lost, things found, and their seekers are at the center of this novel about a girl’s prolonged mourning for her mother. In the wake of the sudden death of her mother, Sammy finds that her only consolation has been her best friend Bones, who shares with her the hope that their endless digging in their neighbors’ yards and the surrounding countryside will lead them to a magic discovery. Then Sammy’s long-absent Aunt Constance, her mother’s sister, comes for a visit. She is a real “finder,” sought out by others who have lost people and need comfort, answers, or both. In spite of that gift, Aunt Constance is unhappy; she is hounded by people who need her, and has no real home of her own. Worse, she has never been able to locate the one thing that means anything to her, the top half of a photograph of Sammy’s mother that has been placed in a threadbare pink satin jewelry box, which has been hidden. Sammy, anxious to locate anything that was her mother’s, quietly joins the search and succeeds, coming to terms with her loss and seeing that she has a real future, her own way. This tender and touching story of love, loss, and rediscovery is strongly plotted and poetically told, but the characters make it count; every one of them is someone readers will want to meet again. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32678-5
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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