A glitzy bloodbath with the most ironic title ever.
Celebrities, romance, and carnage on the high seas.
It’s pretty skeevy for a meet-cute, but when 17-year-old Laurel vomits on 19-year-old Tom’s shoes, it’s destiny—and foreshadows flavors to come. Laurel’s on this luxury weight-loss cruise to keep a friend company; Tom’s there as a television host, trying to wrangle his child-star career into something more serious. The ritzy cruise is sponsored by Solu, a sugar substitute and weight-loss catalyst that’s supposedly a “solu”-tion for fatness. Tom declines Solu because of his strict “clean eating” diet; Laurel declines from seasickness and wariness. At first, Solu’s effects are merely preposterous, causing a 13-pound weight loss in two days. But soon passengers become walking, tooth-dropping cadavers, so addicted—think heroin times meth times vampires—that they’re rioting and committing frenzied murder to drink one another’s Solu-filled blood. With former competitors from Survivor and The Bachelorette aboard, the who-will-survive plot works well, fast-paced yet farcically cheesy. (Tom can identify someone’s “schizoid break” because “I did a guest star on Criminal Minds”; then again, according to Laurel, he’s “so frickin’ manly.”) Tom and Laurel alternate narrating, their first-person voices indistinguishable. The wealthy passengers’ superior obliviousness seeps into the text, as when Laybourne calls the multiracial ship crew “a walking United Nations” and a black girl “strong and angry.”
A glitzy bloodbath with the most ironic title ever. (Horror. 13 & up)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05519-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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