A commendable YA novel with thriller, romance and coming-of-age elements in one neat package.
At just 16, Sasha, a CIA agent formerly with the FBI, employs her unique skill in this absorbing YA political espionage thriller.
Sasha was born with a remarkable gift—or curse, depending on one’s perspective. People can’t help but speak their thoughts when in her presence, and a simple question from her lips can make suspects spill the truth. After bouncing as a child from one foster home to another, Sasha finds some security with Chelsea Tanner, an FBI agent who’s both her professional partner and guardian. Sasha is crushed when, on the eve of her 16th birthday, she’s forced to leave Chelsea and the United States to go to Brussels to infiltrate an international graffiti terrorist group. Residing with CIA agent Porter Jennings, Sasha becomes friends with his teenage daughter, Viviane. Later, she’s surprised when Viviane leads her into the lap of her quarry, Kid Aert. As Sasha deals with the novelties of friendship and romance—and above all, acceptance—she’s forced to choose between loyalty to her new friends and the job she has been sent to do. Sasha’s tough exterior doesn’t fully mask her vulnerability, probably due to too many years of being labeled a “freak” by her peers and foster parents. Gray (Suddenly You, 2013, etc.), who also authored the Jane Austen Academy series as well as the Gentlemen Next Door series, doesn’t go to the dystopian lengths that have become commonplace in YA literature, nor does she rely on clichéd paranormal elements, other than Sasha’s “gift.” Indeed, the story is refreshing for its normalcy, recalling 1970s political espionage novels. Even Sasha’s prey possesses noble rationalizations, adding to her moral quandary. While Sasha achieves some personal and professional closure, the fate of her romance is left unresolved, hopefully to be continued in the series’ next entry.
A commendable YA novel with thriller, romance and coming-of-age elements in one neat package.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Gray Life, LLC.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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