An ambitious failure.
Three best friends spend the night before graduation in a run-down movie house.
Bertucci, Olivia, and Codman have been best friends all through high school, and on the eve of their graduation, the trio agrees to spend their final hours as high school students locked in the recently boarded-up Circle Cinema. In these few hours, truths are revealed, hearts are torn open, and futures are decided upon. These ambitions ultimately sink the novel. The enterprise is burdened with overthought dialogue, clumsy metaphors, and what comes across as a desperate desire to be seen as adult. The novel switches narrative perspective from teen to teen at the beginning of every chapter, but the device is unsuccessful: these characters all sound and think the same. These attributes almost make the book work as thematic commentary on the nature of teenage friendship, but unfortunately it doesn’t go much beyond the obvious observation that teens tend to think like their friends and are desperate to escape childhood. Throw in a half-baked love triangle and an apparent attempt to ape John Green and David Levithan's "Schrodinger's cat" metaphor from Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010)—a metaphor that even that book barely pulled off—and you have a book that has all the hallmarks of a smart, sensitive book for teens but without the necessary nuance or emotional excitement.
An ambitious failure. (Fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4677-7489-5
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking.
Sixteen-year-old Mandy considers herself the anti-Starfire: Unlike her scantily clad superhero mother, she doesn’t have superpowers, can’t fly, and doesn’t even own a bathing suit.
Mandy dyes her hair and dresses in all black to further call out how different they are. Mandy’s best friend, Lincoln, whose parents were born in Vietnam, insightfully summarizes this rift as being down to an intergenerational divide that occurs whether parents and children come from different countries or different planets. Mandy tries to figure out what kind of future she wants for herself as she struggles with teenage insecurities and bullying, her relationship with her mom, and her budding friendship (or is it something more?) with her new class project partner, Claire. Yoshitani’s vibrant and colorful stylized illustrations beautifully meld the various iterations of Starfire and the Titans with the live-action versions of those characters. Together with Tamaki’s punchy writing, this coming-of-age story of identity, family, friendship, and saving the world is skillfully brought to life in a quick but nuanced read. These layers are most strongly displayed as the story draws parallels between cultural differences between the generations as evidenced in how the characters address bullying, body positivity, fatphobia, fetishization and sexualization, and feminism. This title addresses many important concepts briefly, but well, with great pacing, bold art, and concise and snappy dialogue. The cast is broadly diverse in both primary and secondary characters.
Equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking. (Graphic fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77950-126-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
Chaotic
Angels and devils fight grim wars across the five boroughs.
Fans of A Touch Mortal (2011) are advised to reread before they pick up this sequel, as none of the myriad plot threads— some involving delusional, amnesiac or otherwise unreliable narrators—are revisited for forgetful readers. Instead, volume two leads right into a tangle of names: Eden is living with Az and Jarrod, who works with Zach and befriends Sullivan, and all of them distrust Madeline and hide from Luke while seeking Gabe and ignoring Kristen's worsening mental illness... Somewhere in all of this is a paranormal adventure. Eden and allies are mostly Siders, living undead who remain immortal and forgotten after their suicides. Eden and her beloved Az (the angel Azazel, caught in a limbo between heaven and hell) are seeking Gabe, Az's best friend and the angel who Fell at the conclusion of this series' first volume. Inexplicable politics between Eden and the other Sider leaders prevents them from banding together against a common enemy: Luke, otherwise known as Lucifer. As if that weren't bad enough, Heaven's involved now, and neither celestial nor infernal forces seem to be looking out for the best interest of the Siders. Eden has her hands full keeping Az from Falling the rest of the way to hell, seeking Gabe and hiding her own deterioration.
Chaotic . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-200502-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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