A fun, amusing tale about the beautiful torment of young hearts and hormones at play.
A poor, persecuted eighth-grade boy falls for a popular girl in a posh school.
Carrillo (Americano Abroad, 2012, etc.) evokes the wonder and confusion of first love in his debut YA novel. The hero is the eponymous Paco Jones, a biracial kid with a good heart but few friends. He’s recently transferred from his old junior high to a preppy private school, and because he’s the most impoverished kid in attendance, he soon finds himself the least popular. It doesn’t help that he sports “a big nose, an unflattering birthmark on my neck, pigeon-toed feet and hairy arms,” all of them fodder for teasing. He’s jeered at during lunch, called Drug Dealer and Paco Taco, and otherwise hounded by “the rumor mill; the gossipers; the two-faced cheaters who’d do anything to get ahead or get popular.” So what hope is there for him when he falls for Naomi Fox, a popular girl already involved with a popular guy? By charm and by chance, Paco becomes friends with both Naomi and her boyfriend, Trent Oden. But that only leads to more problems when Trent drafts Paco to be his Cyrano de Bergerac, choosing gifts for Naomi and writing Trent’s love letters. Carrillo remembers the tortures of eighth grade well and re-creates them with competence. Any reader who’s been young and in love should feel a vicarious thrill when Naomi friends Paco on Facebook or casually shares her number. Readers should also fret for Paco as he gets his hopes up (“If I said the wrong thing it could be over….What could be over?!”). Eight-grade readers should nod in recognition, though a few may find the story arc predictable, at least until a clever twist appears toward the end. Students with different backgrounds from their classmates may especially identify with Paco, an outsider in a strange place, shy but wise, his own heart a secret. But all readers should find plenty here to make them smile.
A fun, amusing tale about the beautiful torment of young hearts and hormones at play.Pub Date: March 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5194-9119-0
Page Count: 126
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Aspiring filmmaker/first-novelist Chbosky adds an upbeat ending to a tale of teenaged angst—the right combination of realism and uplift to allow it on high school reading lists, though some might object to the sexuality, drinking, and dope-smoking. More sophisticated readers might object to the rip-off of Salinger, though Chbosky pays homage by having his protagonist read Catcher in the Rye. Like Holden, Charlie oozes sincerity, rails against celebrity phoniness, and feels an extraliterary bond with his favorite writers (Harper Lee, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Ayn Rand, etc.). But Charlie’s no rich kid: the third child in a middle-class family, he attends public school in western Pennsylvania, has an older brother who plays football at Penn State, and an older sister who worries about boys a lot. An epistolary novel addressed to an anonymous “friend,” Charlie’s letters cover his first year in high school, a time haunted by the recent suicide of his best friend. Always quick to shed tears, Charlie also feels guilty about the death of his Aunt Helen, a troubled woman who lived with Charlie’s family at the time of her fatal car wreck. Though he begins as a friendless observer, Charlie is soon pals with seniors Patrick and Sam (for Samantha), stepsiblings who include Charlie in their circle, where he smokes pot for the first time, drops acid, and falls madly in love with the inaccessible Sam. His first relationship ends miserably because Charlie remains compulsively honest, though he proves a loyal friend (to Patrick when he’s gay-bashed) and brother (when his sister needs an abortion). Depressed when all his friends prepare for college, Charlie has a catatonic breakdown, which resolves itself neatly and reveals a long-repressed truth about Aunt Helen. A plain-written narrative suggesting that passivity, and thinking too much, lead to confusion and anxiety. Perhaps the folks at (co-publisher) MTV see the synergy here with Daria or any number of videos by the sensitive singer-songwriters they feature.
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02734-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: MTV Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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