In most high schools, the psychic girl would be the weird supernatural student, but Morgan’s precognitive powers just aren’t the strangest thing around. Instead, it’s Morgan’s boyfriend, Cam, her best friend since they were in diapers, who’s the really paranormal teen in this shallow romance. It seems Cam is a changeling, destined to return to the fairy lands on his 16th birthday. Morgan watches in horror as Cam’s football-player physique shrinks away into sparkly, winged, smooth-skinned feyness. Meanwhile, she has to cope with an interloper: Pip, the human child originally stolen and replaced by Cam in the cradle 16 years before. As Morgan watches, Pip transforms from fashion-challenged dork to a gorgeous-smelling hunk with washboard abs. It’s too bad that this love story, fairly original within the confines of the trendy paranormal-romance genre, is so thoroughly superficial, complete with a self-absorbed, unlikable heroine and a looks-obsessed notion of love and romance. The fairy world has got to be better than being in Morgan’s orbit. (Fantasy. 12-14)
Pub Date: June 23, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-73706-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
Cooney (Burning Up, 1999, etc.) puts a family into a downward spiral and plants funny, rueful Sophie Olivette at its unquiet center to observe and comment. Her father’s sudden announcement that he’s getting married is the stuff of soap opera to Sophie; he has a perfectly good wife and two daughters already, whom he’s willing to set aside without a thought in order to marry gorgeous, half-his-age Persia, college roommate of Sophie’s older sister, Marley. His betrayals continue when he announces that he is going to sell their beautiful home and everything in it so he and Persia can travel the globe. What of Sophie’s mother? She’s so busy pursuing spiritual matters that she hardly seems to comprehend what’s happening. Marley is still safely away at college, more interested in her new doctor boyfriend than in her family’s imminent destruction. Only Sophie’s solid, stolid classmate Ted recognizes her turmoil and agrees to help her stop her father before it is too late. This is a riotously funny novel, full of unique characters, and sly, unexpected plot turns, but underneath all the comedy is a real story of real people caught up in a rotten situation that is growing worse every minute. Cooney puts the characters through their paces with jaw-dropping alacrity, as they try to cope in the face of nearly insuperable odds. It’s a modern morality play that is full of humor, and never belies its sudsy origins. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32649-1
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
After being dumped by her boyfriend, rejected by her girlfriends and humiliated by her classmates, Ruby Oliver, a 15-year-old moderately popular girl turned pariah, reassesses her history and her actions. Ruby’s tool for this task is her newly made compilation of “all the boyfriends, kind-of boyfriends, almost-boyfriends, rumored boyfriends and wished-he-were boyfriends” in her life. It’s a clever gimmick and author Lockhart uses it as a prism through which Ruby, with help from her therapist, can view her life and herself. Slowly, Ruby and the reader begin to understand that she’s not the total victim she appeared to be initially, and while she hardly deserved the cruelty that’s been heaped upon her, she had a distinct hand in her fate. The issues Ruby deals with are serious, but the first-person narrative is amusing and the overall tone is light. Although the gimmick gets tedious and repetitious in spots, Lockhart shines at depicting the all-encompassing microcosm of school social life, and wisely eschews an unrealistically happy ending, instead offering hope and honest growth. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 22, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-73206-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
