An interesting premise and engaging protagonist let down by overall execution.
High school senior Hallie plans to attend college by winning a prestigious local scholarship, but unforeseen circumstances jeopardize her dreams.
Hallie thought she knew all the rules governing the Verhaag Scholarship, which is awarded to the Santa Barbara High School student who writes the best research paper about famed poet Robert W. Service, rumored to have been intimately connected with family matriarch Augusta Verhaag. But it turns out she didn’t. Some fine print—and the award committee’s reputation for nepotism—mean that to have a fighting chance she must encourage another classmate to apply while hustling to find an extracurricular activity to round out her college applications. Hallie also continues working many hours at her father’s pest control company to earn money. While detailed information about rodents and insects is made genuinely interesting, the rest of the novel is a plod through three slow-moving subplots: machinations to win the scholarship; a romance with Spencer, the boy next door; and a search for last year’s yearbook supplements that were supposedly stolen by a boy who refuses to let her join the yearbook staff. Hallie’s voice has an authentic, often snarky, ring and her pluck is admirable. However, supporting characters are thinly drawn, and the novel is unevenly paced, gets bogged down in irrelevant details, and ends abruptly. All major characters are presumed White; Spencer is cued as Latinx.
An interesting premise and engaging protagonist let down by overall execution. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68442-812-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Keylight Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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