A contemporary teen watches her “picture perfect” family nearly disintegrate when her mother unexpectedly leaves. Fourteen-year-old Phoebe’s mother Beth wins a trip to Las Vegas to attend her cosmetics company’s annual convention. But instead of returning home, Beth unilaterally accepts a “fabulous job in Las Vegas as a national Bee Beautiful spokeswoman” for an indefinite period. Left on their own, Phoebe and her family are in shock when an attractive widow moves into the house next door and into their lives. Phoebe instantly decides the widow is trying to take Beth’s place and resents her, but as weeks stretch into months, Phoebe also resents Beth for putting career before family. One thing after another threatens to further disrupt the family, but they gradually learn to accept life without Beth just in time for Beth to return home with cancer. Meanwhile, a more independent Phoebe starts high school and copes with her first crush. How Phoebe and her not-so-perfect family survive and emerge stronger makes this a rewarding read, despite a vaguely soap-ish plot. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: March 27, 2007
ISBN: 0-689-87390-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
In her first YA novel, Lewis delivers a deceptively simple, in-depth psychological portrait of an angry girl who finds courage in her dreams of Abraham Lincoln. Meghan, 16, has lost nearly everything she loves. Her mother was killed in a car accident; her brother, Killian, has been psychologically destroyed during his tour of duty in Vietnam; her school has expelled her; her father, whom she calls the Banker, is a constant source of fighting. Early on in life, Meghan exhibited extraordinary talent for and joy in running. As the story opens, she has lost a leg to cancer, and has retreated into rage, refusing to undergo rehabilitation. In the hospital she clings to one remaining love: her affection for Lincoln, who lived in her hometown of Springfield, Illinois. As she ponders scenes from her life and from his, she begins to write postcards to him in which she expresses her frustrations. One night after taking a powerful sleeping pill she finds a visitor in her room: Lincoln himself. Meghan’s postcards have replaced the holy cards she collected as a girl in Catholic school, and she passes on their power to her damaged brother. Lewis’s sentences are as spare as her brief chapters, presenting snapshots of Meghan reminiscent of her postcards. Scenes of anger, sorrow, and fleeting happiness merge to produce recognizable characters who walk and breathe in this impressive first effort. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82852-7
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
Baz is an excellent thief. She has been since the beginning, when Demi found her as a tiny child and she came to live with him in Fay’s den of child crooks in an (perhaps frustratingly) unspecified urban slum. No one is as good at picking pockets as the innocent-looking team of Baz and Demi, and they’re content to be Fay’s favorite children. When Demi steals a glittering ring from an uptown lady, they fall into a lengthy chain of betrayal and corruption. Spies within their own gang are the least of their problems; the ring belonged to the chief of police’s wife, and both the police and the mob are after them. Trusting anyone is dangerous, but Baz doesn’t want to end up like Fay and Demi, who trust no one. Lavish details of the hellish environment, from mud flats that drown the unwary to the festering garbage mountain on which enslaved children pick trash for the mob, derail the adventure’s forward momentum, slowing it to a crawl. What ought to be a thrilling chase drags, despite the charming, streetwise heroine. (Fiction. 12-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-56330-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Chelsea Green
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010
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