First in his family to go to college (and first to flunk out after one hard-partying semester in Anchorage), Eddie lands a job as a reporter in Kusko, Alaska, for a year—because what can go wrong in a remote town inaccessible by road?
Eddie, 18 and white, grew up with Minnesota winters; in high school he wrote sports stories for the town paper, but Kusko (Alaskans will know it as Bethel) is colder and the work is nonstop. He’s billeted with Dalton, his editor and boss (and also white), and tasked with feeding and cleaning up after the sled dogs. In return, Dalton teaches Eddie to mush and pays to fly in Eddie’s beloved truck from Anchorage (there’s nowhere to drive to). Eddie befriends easygoing Finn, a Yup’ik, pot-dealing neighbor, and pursues Taylor—she’s Yup’ik, Italian, and Swedish—high school valedictorian, whose rebuffs prove more than embarrassing. Frustrated and bored, Eddie hatches a plan to raise money, quit early, and return to Anchorage: combine reporting duties with selling weed outside Kusko, but tall and blond—plus cocky, impulsive, and clueless about the drug trade—he’s quickly detected by dealers whose territory he’s poaching. (Set in 2010, the novel omits the state’s complex legal history with marijuana, including legalization in 1998 for medical use.) If occasionally melodramatic, this coming-of-age debut is a sharply observed journey through seldom-explored territory.
Raunchy, funny, fast-paced; for those looking to hook male teen readers, your work is done. (author interview) (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63079-055-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Switch/Capstone
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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A slightly abridged graphic version of the classic that will drive off all but the artist’s most inveterate fans.
Admirers of the original should be warned away by veteran horror artist Bernie Wrightson’s introductory comments about Grimly’s “wonderfully sly stylization” and the “twinkle” in his artistic eye. Most general readers will founder on the ensuing floods of tiny faux handwritten script that fill the opening 10 pages of stage-setting correspondence (other lengthy letters throughout are presented in similarly hard-to-read typefaces). The few who reach Victor Frankenstein’s narrative will find it—lightly pruned and, in places, translated into sequences of largely wordless panels—in blocks of varied length interspersed amid sheaves of cramped illustrations with, overall, a sickly, greenish-yellow cast. The latter feature spidery, often skeletal figures that barrel over rough landscapes in rococo, steampunk-style vehicles when not assuming melodramatic poses. Though the rarely seen monster is a properly hard-to-resolve jumble of massive rage and lank hair, Dr. Frankenstein looks like a decayed Lyle Lovett with high cheekbones and an errant, outsized quiff. His doomed bride, Elizabeth, sports a white lock à la Elsa Lanchester, and decorative grotesqueries range from arrangements of bones and skull-faced flowers to bunnies and clownish caricatures.
Grimly plainly worked hard, but, as the title indicates, the result serves his own artistic vision more than Mary Shelley’s. (Graphic classic. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-186297-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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This story is necessary. This story is important.
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Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is a black girl and an expert at navigating the two worlds she exists in: one at Garden Heights, her black neighborhood, and the other at Williamson Prep, her suburban, mostly white high school.
Walking the line between the two becomes immensely harder when Starr is present at the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Khalil, by a white police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Khalil’s death becomes national news, where he’s called a thug and possible drug dealer and gangbanger. His death becomes justified in the eyes of many, including one of Starr’s best friends at school. The police’s lackadaisical attitude sparks anger and then protests in the community, turning it into a war zone. Questions remain about what happened in the moments leading to Khalil’s death, and the only witness is Starr, who must now decide what to say or do, if anything. Thomas cuts to the heart of the matter for Starr and for so many like her, laying bare the systemic racism that undergirds her world, and she does so honestly and inescapably, balancing heartbreak and humor. With smooth but powerful prose delivered in Starr’s natural, emphatic voice, finely nuanced characters, and intricate and realistic relationship dynamics, this novel will have readers rooting for Starr and opening their hearts to her friends and family.
This story is necessary. This story is important. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-249853-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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