A thoughtful, funny, righteously angry take on a serious subject.
In this contemporary novel, a young woman vows to take down a website where explicit content showing many of her Roosevelt High classmates is posted.
Seventeen-year-old Margot Mertz is the ambitious mastermind behind a lucrative business that scours out revenge porn and other compromising online material for her clients. Her only friend, Sammi Santos, a talented hacker, assists with this endeavor. In first-person, comically footnoted chapters that expose Margot’s appealing duality—confident and driven yet awkward and self-deprecating—readers follow her through a madcap scheme to infiltrate her peers’ social groups to get at the creator of Roosevelt Bitches. A victim of the site hires her to bring it down, insisting that she can tell no one, including Sammi: Since her mother is a prominent judge, and she doesn’t trust the authorities, she just wants the site to quietly vanish. Margot’s laser focus has led her to neglect both the fury she feels about the trauma she witnesses as part of her job and her personal feelings for others, including Avery, a guy she doesn’t trust because he’s “serial-killer nice” but whom it will be obvious to readers she’s actually falling for. The storylines play out realistically, hopefully, and with an abundance of hilarious dialogue. Margot is White; Avery’s mom is Black, and his dad is White; Sammi is Dominican American, and there is diversity in secondary characters.
A thoughtful, funny, righteously angry take on a serious subject. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-20525-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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