If everyone is so focused on your beautiful, accomplished older sister they can’t even celebrate your birthday, something’s wrong. Twelve-year-old Jane doesn’t get her ears pierced, open her presents or have her birthday cake when sister Lizzie is rushed to the emergency room. Lizzie’s eating disorder soon claims her life, and the family is left with guilt, anger and ultimately the need to re-create their lives. Jane finally begins to come out of the shadows and develop herself and her relationship with her father, revise her ideas about “perfect Lizzie” and allow her mother some humanity. While the slightly studied quality of the language brings a precision to the first-person narrative that can feel stilted, it also captures the essence of events carefully, acknowledging the pain without staying there. There’s not much practical help for those with eating disorders or their families as Lytton focuses on resolving everything quickly and tidily. The intricacies of sibling relationships and the complexity of life are pared away to focus on healing and growing. All flower, no roots. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-525-42078-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
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Eddie, a young Mexican-American scraping by in the mean streets of Fresno, California, counts four dead relatives and one dead friend in the opening, in-your-face lines of this new novel from Soto (Snapshots from the Wedding, p. 228, etc.). In bleak sentences of whispered beauty, Eddie tells how he dropped out of vocational college and is attempting to get by with odd jobs. His aunt and friends want him to avenge the recent murder of his cousin, but Eddie just wants to find a way out. Everything he tries turns soura stint doing yard work ends when his boss's truck is stolen on Eddie's watchand life is a daily battle for survival. This unrelenting portrait is unsparing in squalid details: The glue sniffers, gangs, bums, casual knifings, filth, and stench are in the forefront of a life without much hope``Laundry wept from the lines, the faded flags of poor, ignorant, unemployable people.'' Soto plays the tale straightthe only sign of a ``happy'' ending is in Eddie's joining the Navy. The result is a sort of Fresno Salaam Bombay without the pockets of humanity that gave the original its charm. A valuable tale, it's one that makes no concessions. (glossary) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-201333-4
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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