by Erica Cameron ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 9, 2017
Readers willing to go with the book’s flow should enjoy this logic-free, apocalyptic caper. (Thriller. 12-18)
Fifteen-year-old intersex, mixed-race (Vietnamese and Dominican) teenager Blake’s life with a special-agent dad and a helicopter-pilot mom is anything but “normal”—and it’s about to get a lot thriller-ier.
After Blake’s parents are killed, Blake, who chooses which gender to express each day, is kidnapped from protective custody by the Calvers, a family of “vigilante-bodyguards” including mixed-race, olive-skinned Daelan, who is about Blake’s age. Dru, Daelan’s sister, dates Kindra Weston, a former teenage assassin for hire who escaped her family (of assassins) to help the Calvers and gay couple (and AWOL Marines) Geomar and Aaron try to figure out what shady businesswoman Lillian French, who regularly employs the Westons, is planning. Can the Calvers keep Blake safe? Will worried Muslim special-agent godparents Altair and Fayza ever see Blake again? Can they decipher French’s plan and stop her before millions die? Cameron’s sequel picks up where Assassins: Discord (2016) left off but with a new focal character, Blake instead of Kindra. Both volumes are best read as one long, consciously multicultural, aspirationally inclusive, utterly implausible adventure. Every step forward in the investigation relies on a turncoat in French’s employ suiciding to deliver a coded message or infodump; on the other hand, angst-y episodes are realistic enough, but they waffle on a bit. Character names would fit better in a fantasy novel…which, in a sense, this is.
Readers willing to go with the book’s flow should enjoy this logic-free, apocalyptic caper. (Thriller. 12-18)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62649-424-4
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Triton Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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by Pete Hautman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2017
Winning views of a family pulling together, of young people stumbling into adolescence, and of an entertaining if...
Winning a competitive eating contest is David’s only hope of avoiding being grounded for life after he does something stupid with his mother’s credit card.
Already an avid eater and a fan of the “sport,” David Miller, 14, figures that he’s really going to have to up his game after accidently spending $2,000 in an online auction for what is billed as the very hot-dog half that cost pro eater Jooky Garafalo last year’s Nathan’s Famous contest. Fortunately, local pizzeria Pigorino’s is sponsoring a competition at the Iowa State Fair with a $5,000 first prize. Unfortunately, David will have to beat out not only a roster of gifted amateurs to make and win the finals, but also a pair of professionals—notably the renowned but unscrupulous El Gurgitator. As much gourmet as gourmand, David not only vividly chronicles awe-inspiring gustatory feats as he gears up and passes through qualifiers, but describes food with unseemly intensity: “Disks of pepperoni shimmer and glisten on a sea of molten mozzarella.” Even better, though, is the easy, natural way he interacts with Mal, a younger brother whose neurological disability (the term “autistic” is banned from family discourse) transforms but does not conceal a rich internal life. Other subplots, such as a developing relationship between David’s longtime friends Hayden (who is evidently white) and Korean-American Cyn, further enrich a tale in which his own tests and his loving, white family’s determined quest to discover what they dub “Mal’s Rules” both result in thrilling, hard-won triumphs.
Winning views of a family pulling together, of young people stumbling into adolescence, and of an entertaining if controversial pursuit, “reverse-eating events” and all. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9070-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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by Ali Benjamin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 22, 2015
A painful story smartly told, Benjamin’s first solo novel has appeal well beyond a middle school audience.
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In middle school, where “Worst Thing” can mean anything from a pimple to public humiliation, Suzy “Zu” Swanson really has a reason to be in crisis: her former best friend has died unexpectedly, and the seventh-grader is literally silenced by grief and confusion.
A chance encounter with a jellyfish display on a school trip gives her focus—for Zu, the venomous Irukandji jellyfish, while rare, provides a possible explanation for the “how” of Franny’s death. And Zu is desperate for answers and relief from her haunting grief and guilt. In seven parts neatly organized around the scientific method as presented by Mrs. Turton, a middle school teacher who really gets the fragility of her students, Zu examines and analyzes past and present. A painful story of friendship made and lost emerges: the inseparable early years, Franny’s pulling away, Zu’s increasing social isolation, and a final attempt by Zu to honor a childhood pact. The author gently paints Zu as a bit of an oddball; not knowing what hair product to use leaves her feeling “like a separate species altogether,” and knowing too many species of jellyfish earns her the nickname Medusa. Surrounded by the cruelty of adolescence, Zu is awkward, smart, methodical, and driven by sadness. She eventually follows her research far beyond the middle school norm, because “ ‘Sometimes things just happen’ is not an explanation. It is not remotely scientific.”
A painful story smartly told, Benjamin’s first solo novel has appeal well beyond a middle school audience. (Fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-38086-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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