This spin on a teenager’s search for identity wears thin without much substance to support it.
The results of a DNA test send a high school senior into a tailspin.
Cordelia has always felt out of place in her family of five. But when she crafts her senior class project around her ancestry and love of poetry, she never expects that the results of the DNA test she takes will shake the foundation of her identity. The test reveals that her father is not the man who raised her, triggering a myriad of questions and leading to a crisis of identity. The testing company connects her with the man who is her biological father, whom she contacts looking for answers. When he responds, she becomes increasingly fixated on getting to know him, going so far as to use a class trip as an excuse to travel from her home in Tundra Cove, Alaska, to Seattle, where he lives, so she can meet him. Told in a combination of verse, text messages, and emails, this debut stretches out a thin plot as Cordelia's expressions of emotional angst feel flat and repetitive. The communication between Cordelia and the adults in her life may strain readers’ patience and credulity. A lukewarm romance develops between Cordelia and her childhood friend–turned–troubled boy Kodiak Jones. Cordelia, who is White, often employs animal imagery to describe Kodiak, who is described as having Tlingit ancestry on his mother’s side. (An earlier version of this review misstated the hometown of the protagonist.)
This spin on a teenager’s search for identity wears thin without much substance to support it. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-295440-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Disappointing.
Unlikely friends fight their growing feelings for each other while placing bets on other people’s love lives.
Bailey met Charlie while flying from Alaska, where she grew up, to Nebraska, where she and her mom would be living after her parents’ divorce. Although they briefly bonded over their parents’ divorces, Charlie’s cynicism grated on the rule-following Bailey, and she was thankful to part ways with him. Three years later, to Bailey’s dismay, she runs into Charlie when they both land jobs at Planet Funnn, a mega-hotel that’s “like a giant landlocked cruise ship.” This time around, Bailey and Charlie begin to get along better. To entertain themselves during their long shifts, they observe and make bets about the hotel guests. But they risk taking it too far when they bet on whether their co-worker Theo will end up with Nekesa, Bailey’s best friend, who’s in “a perfect relationship with the perfect guy.” The book explores Bailey’s conflicted feelings toward her mom’s new relationship with Scott (who doesn’t “do anything wrong” but whose presence changes “the vibe” at home), but it does so in a way that diminishes a primary source of conflict. Bailey's and Charlie’s feelings become even more complicated when Charlie helps Bailey with a fake-dating scheme intended to scare Scott off. Some of the banter between the leads, who are coded white, feels more aggressive than playful, detracting from their intimacy, and the circuitous plot may fail to sustain readers’ interest.
Disappointing. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781665921237
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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