A solid, appealing debut.
An academic overachiever susses out her professional and romantic futures in this Australian import.
Josie—not quite 18 and full of an overachiever’s occasionally awkward, nervy energy—is dreading an unpaid internship at swanky Sash magazine. It’s just one day a week, so she gamely commutes from her sleepy suburb, staying two nights a week with her charming slacker cousin Tim and his butterflies-inducingly cute roommate, James. Braving the city crowds and her intimidatingly cool fellow interns in an outfit selected by her more stylish younger sister, Kat, Josie decides she must win the competition for the $5,000 the magazine is offering to the intern that exacting Editor-in-Chief Rae deems best of the semester. (Money is tight since her father abruptly left the family, and the winnings would help Josie and Kat’s financially stressed mother keep her head above water.) Josie’s gift as a writer and her guilelessly direct way with a bad-boy pop star launch her journalism career, but the consequences of a drunken night out almost ruin her, professionally and socially. In many ways, Josie is a fairly typical 17-year-old, considerate and selfish by turns, facing important questions about how to behave in her family, peer and collegial relationships. New friendships flourish, old ones evolve, and readers will cheer as their small-town heroine finds her way in the big (unnamed) city.
A solid, appealing debut. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7322-9705-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper360
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Far too little kissing. Far too much fussing.
For years, every minute in Jules McAllister-Morgan’s day has been carefully scheduled and committed to a single cause: getting accepted at Brown University.
Straight A’s? Check. Volunteer work? Check. Student government? Check. And now, editor of Eagle Vista Academy’s 104-year-old newspaper? Check. Just when it seems that nothing could possibly derail her plans for college domination, Alex Powell comes to town. With a little nudging from her two moms and her best friend, Sadie, Jules opens herself up to the idea that making some time for romance might not be the end of the world. Fortunately for readers, the sparks that fly between Jules and Alex, the ex–boy band star and newest addition to the senior class, are hot enough to make them a couple worth rooting for. Unfortunately for readers, Jules’ over-the-top reaction to Alex’s seemingly harmless role supporting a media rival to the school paper turns all that delicious lust into hate prematurely. What follows is a choppy read, in which Jules’ quirky, overachieving charm turns into an off-putting and seemingly unbalanced obsession with crushing the competition no matter the cost. What could have been another light and entertaining addition to the tried-and-true smart-girl-falls-for-bad-boy romp fizzles as Jules loses her grip on reality.
Far too little kissing. Far too much fussing. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38278-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poppy/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
McGinty’s debut is a bit of a shaggy dog story: frequently meandering and patience-trying but bighearted and generous, too.
A teen realizes there’s more to life than augmented reality.
In Aaron O’Faolain’s near-future world, birds are dying en masse, American currency is being phased out in favor of digital-only funds, and everyone wants to have FUN(R). Aaron ditches his boarding school and uses his tuition money to pursue a life of adventure, complete with a microchip and lenses for the Fully Ubiquitous Neuralnet. Once he starts having FUN(R), it mediates all of his experiences in ways that are both (predictably) fun and (equally predictably) intrusive. Aaron’s realization that it’s tiresome to be asked to rate everything from consumer products to fellow humans coincides with his trip home to reckon with his grandfather’s suicide. Having inherited everything, he decides to seek the treasure that might be buried on the property so he can pay back his father and sister. He also pursues fairly typical teen activities such as romance, imbibing questionable substances, scrapping with his responsible older sister, and helping an elderly neighbor. Aaron’s account is littered with trademarked names, and each chapter ends with “yay!” and “boo!” rating buttons—just a few of the amusing details it feels that McGinty couldn’t bear to cut; the result is a book that starts strong but has trouble maintaining its pitch. Aaron is white, but his world is convincingly diverse.
McGinty’s debut is a bit of a shaggy dog story: frequently meandering and patience-trying but bighearted and generous, too. (Adventure. 14-16)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2211-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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