“Alaska is a great place to hide,” and Luke McHenry’s mother has been hiding there for 31 years. She has hidden her own identity, she has hidden the facts of Luke’s identity, and she has hidden from the consequences of one reckless act so many years before. But as Faith McHenry says, “By hiding all these years, I avoided one prison and created another.” Never able to hide from the guilt she feels for a death she caused during an anti-war protest in 1970, Faith, really Mary Margaret Cunningham, goes back to California to turn herself in and face the jail time she knows she deserves. It is not a surprise who Faith McHenry really is, and that is not the point. This is a well-written, compelling story of guilt, justice, identity, forgiveness, coming of age, and coming to terms. The author does an excellent job of peeling back the layers of consequences and the need for forgiveness that one reckless act carries in its wake. Secondary characters are drawn well, and Luke’s voice rings true. The whole novel is a play on the term “free radical,” defined as “cell-destroying oxidizers” that eat away at our bodies and drag us down, akin to Mary Margaret’s guilt. The novel closes with a brilliant metaphor for how Luke manages his crisis of identity. He realizes he is like the sandhill cranes flying overhead in a V formation, the leaders switching position from time to time. “Once when I was little, Mom had told me, ‘That’s how they survive. They take turns flying into the wind.’ ” Luke sees that it’s his turn now to fly into the wind, and he is doing it with the help of friends and family. An excellent angle on the Vietnam War and its legacy. (Fiction. 11-15)
Pub Date: March 18, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-11134-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mick Johnson wants to be a star running back. He’s good, but not good enough. The trouble is the red zone, the 20 yards in front of the end zone, and he’s not quite powerful enough to crunch his way in against big defenders. He begins working harder, lifting weights and taking protein powders, but progress is slow. He starts going to Popeye’s gym, where his trainer introduces him to steroids—gym candy—and then to “stacks,” mixes of pills and injections. This cautionary tale, told in first person, is a methodical working out of the psychology of the high-school athlete willing to do anything to gain an edge. It’s a moral tale, too, as Mick realizes what he has lost for his gains. After almost killing a friend and himself and going through rehab, he understands the almost-irresistible lure of the drugs that promise to make him more than he could be on his own. A superb sports novel with no easy resolutions and a good match with Robert Lipsyte’s Raiders Night (2006). (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-618-77713-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre.
Survival camp? How can you not have bad feelings about that?
Sixteen-year-old nerd (or geek, but not dork) Henry Lambert has no desire to go to Strongwoods Survival Camp. His father thinks it might help Henry man up and free him of some of his odd phobias. Randy, Henry’s best friend since kindergarten, is excited at the prospect of going thanks to the camp’s promotional YouTube video, so Henry relents. When they arrive at the shabby camp in the middle of nowhere and meet the possibly insane counselor (and only staff member), Max, Henry’s bad feelings multiply. Max tries to train his five campers with a combination of carrot and stick, but the boys are not athletes, let alone survivalists. When a trio of gangsters drops in on the camp Games to try to collect the debt owed by the owner, the boys suddenly have to put their skills to the test. Too bad they don’t have any—at all. Strand’s summer-camp farce is peopled with sarcastic losers who’re chatty and wry. It’s often funny, and the gags turn in unexpected directions and would do Saturday Night Live skits proud. However, the story’s flow is hampered by an unnecessary and completely unfunny frame that takes place during the premier of the movie the boys make of their experience. The repeated intrusions bring the narrative to a screeching halt.
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8455-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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