Occasionally illogical and often trippy, a “high” adventure for young adrenaline junkies.
A world-weary teen faces the end of her superpowered-cop career.
Adopting a fight-fire-with-fire strategy, New York City’s experimental Tetra Response Unit employs teens as runners, offering them a steady supply of TTZ, or tetra, so they can be as fast and strong as the breaknecks—drug-fueled teen criminals—they are trying to catch. But the rush cannot last forever, for each runner must stop when puberty does, and time is running out for Alana West. The Feds are angling to shut down the team; she hasn’t found the breakneck who landed her brother, Reuben, in a wheelchair; and she is almost 18. After a bust goes bad and Alana ends up a scapegoat, she accepts an undercover assignment to find the street dealer who supplies the breaknecks. Driven by revenge, rage, and a barely acknowledged addiction, Alana claims responsibility for her brother’s accident but ignores her own TTZ–fueled trail of destruction. Aside from impulsive kissing episodes, Alana never feels particularly adolescent but is instead part wronged action hero—reminiscent of 1980s cop movies—and part junkie. Howard delivers gritty action sequences and an overabundance of vivid tetra-fueled visuals, but his dialogue is filled with cliché-riddled, slang-heavy, YOLO terms. Alana is biracial Latina, with a white father and Honduran mother, but there’s little cultural detail supplied as grounding.
Occasionally illogical and often trippy, a “high” adventure for young adrenaline junkies. (Adventure. 14-18)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-241534-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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