An intriguing mystery embedded within a richly insightful coming-of-age story.
For tornado-focused seventh grader Frankie, “Manners seem like wrapping words in cotton balls.”
She’s known since fourth grade that she isn’t like other kids. Frankie’s bothered by scratchy clothes, being touched, socializing, change, being different from her twin, Tess, but probably most of all by the end of her only friendship—with Colette, whom she’s known since kindergarten. Now Colette has disappeared, and it seems that Frankie was the last person who saw her, but their final contact wasn’t a positive one. Colette had turned up unexpectedly and wanted the special notebook that she, Tess, and Frankie had used to document their yearslong game, “dare-or-scare.” The police are dismissive of Frankie’s realization that after Colette went missing, she posted videos of new “dares.” Frankie uses the clues in the videos to launch a search. Tess assists, in the process helping to heal their battered sisterly relationship. Frankie’s first-person narration is spot-on as she describes her feelings about her attention-deficit and sensory-processing disorders and her Asperger’s syndrome as well as her distaste for the medications that impair her thinking. Her confusion with her own unexpected emotions as she falls for skateboarder Kai—who’s just as smitten with her—is poignant. Although all doesn’t end well, this moving account of Frankie’s emerging maturity—with extra challenges—is perfect. Colette, Frankie, and Frankie’s family seem to be white; it’s suggested that Kai is a boy of color.
An intriguing mystery embedded within a richly insightful coming-of-age story. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-1531-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy.
Inventively tweaking a popular premise, Jensen pits two Incredibles-style families with superpowers against each other—until a new challenge rises to unite them.
The Johnsons invariably spit at the mere mention of their hated rivals, the Baileys. Likewise, all Baileys habitually shake their fists when referring to the Johnsons. Having long looked forward to getting a superpower so that he too can battle his clan’s nemeses, Rafter Bailey is devastated when, instead of being able to fly or something else cool, he acquires the “power” to strike a match on soft polyester. But when hated classmate Juanita Johnson turns up newly endowed with a similarly bogus power and, against all family tradition, they compare notes, it becomes clear that something fishy is going on. Both families regard themselves as the heroes and their rivals as the villains. Someone has been inciting them to fight each other. Worse yet, that someone has apparently developed a device that turns real superpowers into silly ones. Teaching themselves on the fly how to get past their prejudice and work together, Rafter, his little brother, Benny, and Juanita follow a well-laid-out chain of clues and deductions to the climactic discovery of a third, genuinely nefarious family, the Joneses, and a fiendishly clever scheme to dispose of all the Baileys and Johnsons at once. Can they carry the day?
A solid debut: fluent, funny and eminently sequel-worthy. (Adventure. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-220961-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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