Pass.
An ordinary St. Louis teen finds that she has a distinctly un-ordinary legacy when she's attacked in a shopping-mall parking lot.
Until the assault that wakens a terrifying internal voice and preternatural martial-arts abilities, Rileigh has spent her time hanging with her gay BFF Quentin and mooning over hottie Whitley. Now she finds herself coping with the unwanted attention of the mysterious, sandalwood-scented hottie Kim, who insists that she take up training in his dojo. It seems he thinks that she is the reincarnation of his 15th-century lover; the two were samurai who died at the hands of an evil ninja. Now Kim wants to "awaken" her past self using the titular katana she wielded in her earlier life. She wants none of this, but does she have a choice? Is the reincarnation of the evil ninja behind the continuing attacks? Nothing about this debut surprises, from the stock characters to the turgid action scenes. Gibsen laces her narrative with holes: If Kim and Rileigh have been reincarnated multiple times and repeatedly drawn together by psychic destiny, why is there no hint of other past lives? And the writing is frequently downright amateurish, turning out ridiculous similes—"My heart spun in my chest, as if it were the wheel of a gerbil hopped up on Pixy Stix"—when it's not indulging in cliché—"With breakneck speed, I darted to the window and flattened myself against the wall."
Pass. (Paranormal romance. 12-16)Pub Date: March 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7387-3040-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
Flat secondary characterizations and humdrum dialogue won’t keep teens from relishing this histrionic tale of love, death...
Wealthy high school junior Mcalister “Caggie” Caulfield seeks relief from grief over her younger sister’s death by entering into a dangerous relationship with a mysterious boy.
After her little sister drowns in the pool at her family’s beach house in the Hamptons, Caggie wants to die too, to the point that she contemplates jumping off the roof at a friend’s party in Manhattan. A schoolmate named Kristen saves her at the last minute but nearly falls herself. Caggie actually ends up pulling Kristen back and is credited as a hero, which only makes her feel worse. In her grief, Caggie spurns the attentions of her best friend and devoted boyfriend, but she finds a kindred spirit in Astor, a tall, dark and damaged new boy at school who recently lost his mother to cancer. But what Caggie comes to realize about her relationship with Astor is that “[d]arkness stacked on darkness just makes it that much harder to find the light.” After another nearly fatal disaster with Astor at the beach house, Caggie is forced to confront the falsehoods she has told her family and friends and let go of her guilt over her sister’s death. Though Caggie makes a point of telling readers that her paternal grandfather called people like her “phony,” almost nothing is made of the connection to Catcher in the Rye, and it serves merely to make Caggie’s tale suffer by comparison.
Flat secondary characterizations and humdrum dialogue won’t keep teens from relishing this histrionic tale of love, death and lies. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-3316-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
A festive story that shows that in the end it’s friends, not followers, who count.
Two social media influencers on either side of the Atlantic decide to switch places to boost followers—and learn some life lessons in the process.
Holly, a 16-year-old Brit, adores Christmas. She sends herself a card in advance every year and makes a 39-point Christmas-decorating list. But all the tinsel in the world won’t improve her mood after a bad boyfriend breakup. Meanwhile, in Alpine Peaks, New Jersey, American Elle is working to increase the following of her new social media account, @OneElleOfATime, and helping her parents with their Christmas tree rental and decoration business while struggling with the stress of yet another move. A challenge from another influencer to take part in a race to be the first to get 15,000 new followers propels the girls to engage in a life swap over Christmas. Holly’s and Elle’s alternating first-person narratives are laugh-out-loud funny. The roller-coaster drama of their lives as they pursue this outrageous adventure while adapting to each other’s cultures, dealing with the stress of finding material to attract followers to their accounts, and meeting cute boys will keep the pages turning. The constant British versus American wordplay threading the narrative will appeal to many and will introduce non-British readers to holiday traditions such as mince pies, Christmas jumpers (sweaters), and pantomime. All main characters present White.
A festive story that shows that in the end it’s friends, not followers, who count. (Romance. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72824-897-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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