Clichés and unbelievable characters bog down this opposites-attract tale.
A Latino boxer from a gang-infested farm town falls for a naïve rich girl.
Miguel Angel may be a struggling farmworker's son in Alisal, the poorest neighborhood in California's Salinas Valley, but thanks to an after-school boxing club, his dreams of becoming the next Muhammad Ali keep him away from the town’s ubiquitous gangs. Plus, he's got Britney, a beautiful blonde from posh Pebble Beach. But when the boxing program faces eviction, Miguel Angel's future seems uncertain—and he doesn't even know about Britney's missing period. Despite the book's initially intriguing premise, the author fails to deliver believable characterization or a focused plot. Supporting players are a confusing mix of hollow stereotypes—Britney's father, for example, combines high-class snobbery and racism with his own thuggish violence. There may be wealthy white lawyers who don’t want their daughters to date scholarship-needing "losers," but how many seriously threaten to blow out the brains of those "beaner" boyfriends? The romance is disappointingly bland, and the omniscient narration feels disconnected from the characters it's describing (straight-talking Miguel Angel waxes poetic about "princess" Britney's nourishing kisses and "long hair floating down her back like a curtain of monarch butterflies in the forest of his mother's Michoacán"). A touch of unnecessary magical realism (Miguel Angel speaks to the comical ghost of his great-grandmother) only muddles the narrative further.
Clichés and unbelievable characters bog down this opposites-attract tale. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-55885-818-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
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
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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