An empowering new voice transforms kif-kif—same old, same old—into kiffer, something to be crazy about.
Guène’s smart, upbeat debut shows a North African teenager finding the inner grit to withstand pervasive racism in a hardscrabble Parisian suburb.
Fifteen-year-old Doria lives with her illiterate mother in a crummy, rundown housing project. They have been at the mercy of nosy social workers since Doria’s father left them to return to Morocco six months before. The Beard, as she calls him, wanted a son (“for his pride, his reputation, the family honor, and I’m sure lots of other stupid reasons”), and her mother couldn’t have any more children. At the moment, his abandoned family’s mektoub (destiny) seems to consist of getting along on welfare and secondhand clothing. Doria barely scrapes by at school, where apathetic teachers dish out unengaging work. Mom cleans rooms at the dreary Formula 1 Motel, answering to the generic ethnic name of Fatma even though her real name is Yasmina. Doria can only talk to two people: Mme Burlaud, the school-mandated psychologist she sees every Monday, and Hamoudi, an out-of-work young man who smokes spliff and deals drugs but has a caring, protective way with the girl. She and her mother also occasionally visit an Algerian friend they call Aunt Zohra—a “real woman,” according to Doria, because she is “strong” and can even deal with her husband spending six months each year back in the old country with a second wife. Despite her gloomy prospects, Doria refuses to be bitter and even finds some redeeming qualities in “lame-o” Nabil, who comes over to help with her civics homework. Slowly, things begin to change: Her mother leaves the motel after a strike and begins taking classes in English; Hamoudi falls in love with a single-mom tenant. And as for Doria, her luck might be lousy, but she’s determined that her fate won’t be.
An empowering new voice transforms kif-kif—same old, same old—into kiffer, something to be crazy about.Pub Date: July 3, 2006
ISBN: 0-15-603048-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harvest/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
When Ben’s father went to Willamette View, where Ben is starting as a freshman, he was a killer quarterback. Ben, also a talented football player, has always been proud to be a chip off the old block, until the day his father announces he is gay and moves in with his lover. Deeply ashamed, Ben does his best to keep his father’s new life a secret, especially from his tough- talking, hyper-masculine fellow athletes. As Ben struggles to act cool and be one of the guys, he learns that no one is immune from social pressure and that most of his contemporaries posture and pretend. The characters, while sympathetic and understandable, aren’t emotionally involving, and the ending—Ben gets emergency help from his father’s lover and realizes that he still cares for his father—is too pat. Bechard (My Mom Married the Principal, 1998, etc.) is particularly good with dialogue; her characters’ off-center, awkward conversations reveal a lot, while sounding clumsily authentic. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88547-9
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
PLB 0-06-028386-6 In a story based on real events, and told in poems, Sones explores what happened and how she reacted when her adored older sister suddenly began screaming and hearing voices in her head, and was ultimately hospitalized. Individually, the poems appear simple and unremarkable, snapshot portraits of two sisters, a family, unfaithful friends, and a sweet first love. Collected, they take on life and movement, the individual frames of a movie that in the unspooling become animated, telling a compelling tale and presenting a painful passage through young adolescence. The form, a story-in-poems, fits the story remarkably well, spotlighting the musings of the 13-year-old narrator, and pinpointing the emotions powerfully. She copes with friends who snub her, worries that she, too, will go mad, and watches her sister’s slow recovery. To a budding genre that includes Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (1997) and Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade (1993), this book is a welcome addition. (Poetry. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028387-4
Page Count: 220
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
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