A feel-good debut sure to interest teens looking to feel better about not feeling so great.
When the life plan she’d laid out implodes, a college freshman finds herself having to regroup.
On the surface, snarky protagonist/narrator Dandelion “Danny” Berkowitz seems destined to succeed: The attractive, upper-middle-class high school valedictorian has returned home from Harvard for the summer, ready to reconnect with her popular, equally overachieving, tennis-obsessed best friend, Sara. Unbeknownst to Sara or anyone else in their circle of friends, however, Danny spent second semester at a clinic undergoing in-patient treatment for an eating disorder and anxiety. Along with the internalized fear of failure both teens wrestle with privately, Sara has been saving face by keeping secrets of her own, spelling tragic consequences for their friendship. A turning point comes when Danny enters a romantic relationship with a mutual female friend without telling Sara, who then makes insensitive remarks about another girl who is a lesbian. Gonsalves juggles multiple serious adolescent challenges with operatic verve—eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual awakening and orientation, mental health, grief—and the resulting bildungsroman proves engaging and enlightening, particularly in her realistic depiction of compulsive behaviors related to food. All characters are assumed white.
A feel-good debut sure to interest teens looking to feel better about not feeling so great. (author’s note, resource list) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-43672-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A thrilling, heart-racing mystery with a page-turning budding romance at its center.
After a woman is shockingly murdered during a Black Lives Matter protest in Washington, D.C., two teens team up to find the real shooter before someone they both care about takes the fall.
Cooper King, a Black teen, has been directionless since the death of his mother, which is why he reluctantly agrees to help his mentor, Jason, loot stores during an anti–police violence protest, even though it goes against everything he was raised to believe. Cooper desperately wants to hide his involvement in the theft from his childhood friend and secret crush, Monique, a young poet, activist, and high-achieving student. But she becomes involved nonetheless after Jason, who’s her brother, is arrested for the murder. The pair are sure that Jason is innocent and resolve to clear his name by finding the culprit. Their investigation reveals a conspiratorial web of lies and relationships that complicates the potential motive and exposes the racial inequities, political corruption, and social unrest in their city. Each new clue and twist is revealed through Cooper’s and Monique’s alternating points of view, as they gradually piece together answers to an increasingly dangerous and high-stakes whodunit, all while falling in love. Brooks deftly explores the everyday growing pains of Black boyhood and girlhood alongside the threats of racial injustice and police violence faced by youths, often drawing parallels to real activists and movements.
A thrilling, heart-racing mystery with a page-turning budding romance at its center. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781250359933
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Not for the faint of heart due to both subject and length, but the intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of...
1920s New York thrums with giddy life in this gripping first in a new trilogy from Printz winner Bray.
Irrepressible 17-year-old Evie delights in her banishment to her Uncle Will’s care in Manhattan after she drunkenly embarrasses a peer in her Ohio hometown. She envisions glamour, fun and flappers, but she gets a great deal more in the bargain. Her uncle, the curator of a museum of the occult, is soon tapped to help solve a string of grisly murders, and Evie, who has long concealed an ability to read people’s pasts while holding an object of their possession, is eager to assist. An impressively wide net is cast here, sprawling to include philosophical Uncle Will and his odd assistant, a numbers runner and poet who dreams of establishing himself among the stars of the Harlem Renaissance, a beautiful and mysterious dancer on the run from her past and her kind musician roommate, a slick-talking pickpocket, and Evie’s seemingly demure sidekick, Mabel. Added into the rotation of third-person narrators are the voices of those encountering a vicious, otherworldly serial killer; these are utterly terrifying.
Not for the faint of heart due to both subject and length, but the intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don’t let go. Not to be missed. (Historical/paranormal thriller. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-12611-3
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
