Whitney, who brought a successful case against a man who date-raped her in college, here sets a date rape and its aftermath on the campus of an elite boarding school. After Alex wakes up disoriented in a strange boy's bedroom, her roommate and sister convince her to go to the Mockingbirds, an underground student group dedicated to justice. As Alex's case against the thoroughly slimy Carter progresses and her memories of the night return, her emotions run a realistic gamut from shame to self-doubt to fury. However, the story's simplicity is troubling. Everyone but Carter and his villainous friends easily believes Alex's accusations—a rare boon for a rape survivor—and the school's obliviousness to student wrongdoing is implausible. Students use elements of To Kill a Mockingbird as code, but the references feel gimmicky and forced, particularly because the original Mockingbird rape trial is a grave miscarriage of justice. Hits a few high notes—including a consensual, caring and mutually desirous relationship between Alex and a Mockingbird—but ultimately disappointing. (Fiction. 15 & up)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-09053-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues...
28
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He’s in remission from the osteosarcoma that took one of his legs. She’s fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited.
Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She’s smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his—based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green’s signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: “My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched.” Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.
Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus’ poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-525-47881-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
After a horrific domestic violence incident, Zoey Ward and her family finally find their footing in Las Vegas only to have their lives overturned by a house fire.
Learning that her father has been recently released from prison, Zoey suspects he had something to do with the blaze. After their lives go up in flames, literally, Zoey along with her mom and her younger siblings, Kate and Cole, flee Las Vegas with the help of her older brother, Will, and his best friend, Tristan. They take refuge in California, where Tristan and his sister welcome them into a world where things seem hopeful and more stable than anything they have ever known. Yet the fear of being hunted down by her father consumes Zoey. The story is narrated from Zoey’s and Tristan’s first-person perspectives, and Gray (Run Away With Me, 2017, etc.) has masterfully captured the uncertainty and terror that come from domestic violence. Tristan and Zoey share a budding romance in which Zoey slowly but surely learns to love and be loved in a nondestructive, healthy way despite her fears and reservations. With everything she has been through, Zoey is the underdog readers will find themselves rooting for. Gray spares no detail in this intense tale. All characters are assumed to be white; Tristan is dyslexic, and there are several queer characters.
An unflinching portrayal of the devastating effects of domestic violence. (Fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4281-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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