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
Masterfully modernizing the gothic horror genre, McGinnis outdoes herself.
While one cousin grapples with murder, another seeks revenge in this Edgar Allen Poe–inspired sequel to The Initial Insult (2021).
Picking up where the first novel ended, this duology closer once again follows Tress Montor in mostly White, small-town Amontillado, Ohio. Still looking for answers about her parents’ mysterious disappearance 7 years ago, Tress is also haunted à la “The Tell-Tale Heart” by the murder of Felicity Turnado, whom she entombed alive in the previous entry. Alternating with her first-person narration are chapters from her often taunted cousin, Kermit “Ribbit” Usher. Reminiscent of the title character in Poe’s “Hop-Frog,” Ribbit plans for a deadly revenge against his tormentors as well as a heroic rescue of Felicity and a family-ordered killing. As before, the alternating point-of-view chapters, with taut storytelling, dark twists, and allusions to Poe, effectively play off one another. Reinforcing the converging storylines are interspersed cryptic free-verse poems by Rue, a caged orangutan who lives at the illegal exotic animal attraction owned by Tress’ grandfather. The overall effect this time ups the mystery, intensity, and horror (emphasis on the latter!), with a satisfying ending delivering answers about ongoing family questions and clashes. Readers must be familiar with the first book to fully appreciate this one.
Masterfully modernizing the gothic horror genre, McGinnis outdoes herself. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-298245-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hinds adds another magnificent adaptation to his oeuvre (King Lear, 2009, etc.) with this stunning graphic retelling of Homer’s epic. Following Odysseus’s journey to return home to his beloved wife, Penelope, readers are transported into a world that easily combines the realistic and the fantastic. Gods mingle with the mortals, and not heeding their warnings could lead to quick danger; being mere men, Odysseus and his crew often make hasty errors in judgment and must face challenging consequences. Lush watercolors move with fluid lines throughout this reimagining. The artist’s use of color is especially striking: His battle scenes are ample, bloodily scarlet affairs, and Polyphemus’s cave is a stifling orange; he depicts the underworld as a colorless, mirthless void, domestic spaces in warm tans, the all-encircling sea in a light Mediterranean blue and some of the far-away islands in almost tangibly growing greens. Don’t confuse this hefty, respectful adaptation with some of the other recent ones; this one holds nothing back and is proudly, grittily realistic rather than cheerfully cartoonish. Big, bold, beautiful. (notes) (Graphic classic. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4266-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
