When he was twelve, Daniel’s dad packed the two of them up and moved from New York to Buhler, Kan. Daniel embraced his outsider status with the help of best friend Ruthie, dyed his hair green and accepted the nickname “Sprout.” The summer before his junior year, English teacher Mrs. Miller coaches him for a statewide essay contest; in prepping, Sprout begins to acknowledge his secrets (both public and private). Everyone knows his dad is an eccentric alcoholic and that his mother died of cancer in New York. Everyone suspects Sprout is gay, but no one imagines his purely sexual relationship with school hunk Ian. When Ty, the damaged son of a Timothy McVeigh–loving nut, enters Sprout’s life, everything gets shaken up. Peck’s first aimed squarely at the YA audience is, at times, charming. Sprout’s narrative voice is strong and realistic, and his observations are entertaining. As a whole, though, there’re just too many issues. Add to the above: dating parent, teen pregnancy, betrayals of and by friends. Dedicated readers, especially young gays in the square states, will identify—and it’s important enough for that reason. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: June 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59990-160-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
A coming-of-age tale and queer love story that offers a thoughtful look at the fear of being different.
Two high school students wrestle with keeping secrets from their families.
Harper’s life is thrown into upheaval when her mom moves them from Portland, Oregon, to small-town Clintville, Virginia. Uprooted for the last year of high school while navigating a strained relationship with her mother and mourning her grandfather’s death, Harper feels hopeful when she reconnects with childhood friend and crush Ollie. Both girls have secrets eating away at them: Harper doesn’t know how to tell her mother that she doesn’t want to go to college, and Ollie is terrified of the judgment she’d receive if she came out as bi. Harper finds solace in fixing up her grandfather’s old woodshop, where they spent happy summers together, and Ollie’s “extremely gay D&D group” joins in to help. Dungeons & Dragons sessions in the newly dubbed Gay Barn quickly become a safe way for the pair to explore their attraction through their characters, barbarian Aspen Wildeye and paladin Lyra Mythriniel. While Harper and Ollie dance around their feelings, Aspen and Lyra engage in overt courtship. The white teens offer loving portrayals of young people defying societal norms, and their difficulties manage to be gut-wrenching without crossing the line into a spiral of unhappiness. Brief peeks at the adventures of Aspen and Lyra inject action into an otherwise contemplative narrative, keeping the pace from plodding.
A coming-of-age tale and queer love story that offers a thoughtful look at the fear of being different. (author’s note, resources) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780762488179
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
The upbeat ending that resolves many of Lawrence's struggles is unsurprising and fits well, but there are major flaws here...
A stoner in the process of reforming is pressured to act as a mentor for a new, younger student at his high school in this comedic novel.
First-person narrator Lawrence is the privileged son of two successful but neglectful parents who can't even be bothered to attend a meeting about his possible expulsion from school. His lawyer father does, however, write a threatening letter to the principal, which keeps Lawrence enrolled. He’s assigned by his school counselor to help Spencer, who’s from Norway, as a means to show his good faith to follow the rules. Lawrence is also newly sober, after using pot constantly for years, and begins to somewhat reluctantly fall for a girl who marches to her own drum. Lawrence's back story—he fell in with friends who valued getting high more than they valued him in an effort to shed an earlier geeky image—feels genuine, and readers will feel sympathy for him. A fair amount of his self-conscious humor is funny. However, many other elements played for laughs fall flat—such as Lawrence’s mild unease with gayness, a glaringly stereotyped Latina housekeeper, and a Vietnamese-American villain who accuses others of racial profiling when she's caught out. Characters of color are specified, leaving readers to infer that Lawrence and the rest are white.
The upbeat ending that resolves many of Lawrence's struggles is unsurprising and fits well, but there are major flaws here that will turn readers off. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-239939-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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