Blending Steinbeck and Star Wars, this debut novel with a touch of magical realism leads two teens on a weekend road trip to fulfill a secret mission. With a workaholic mother, an older brother heading to college and an out-of-work, 395-pound father who spends all his time on the couch, high-school freshman Nick doesn’t get much attention, especially when his father walks (literally) out of their house in Albany and back to his roots in New York City. To top it off, his fatherless best friend (and Yoda aficionado), Scooter, has Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare and incurable disease that speeds up the aging process. Then Jaycee, who’s also lost her dad, convinces Nick to join her in granting Scooter’s dying wish: locate Scooter’s father in Rochester and give him Scooter’s signed first edition of Of Mice and Men. Nick’s first-person narration and authentic teen voice give insight into this typical boy who wonders why, in the middle of thinking about his dying best friend, all he really wants to do is kiss Jaycee. Although the teens’ best laid plans go oft awry, they discover that the force of the universe is with them—or at least friendship, family and romance. Pulls the heart in all the right places. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37193-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Flat secondary characterizations and humdrum dialogue won’t keep teens from relishing this histrionic tale of love, death...
Wealthy high school junior Mcalister “Caggie” Caulfield seeks relief from grief over her younger sister’s death by entering into a dangerous relationship with a mysterious boy.
After her little sister drowns in the pool at her family’s beach house in the Hamptons, Caggie wants to die too, to the point that she contemplates jumping off the roof at a friend’s party in Manhattan. A schoolmate named Kristen saves her at the last minute but nearly falls herself. Caggie actually ends up pulling Kristen back and is credited as a hero, which only makes her feel worse. In her grief, Caggie spurns the attentions of her best friend and devoted boyfriend, but she finds a kindred spirit in Astor, a tall, dark and damaged new boy at school who recently lost his mother to cancer. But what Caggie comes to realize about her relationship with Astor is that “[d]arkness stacked on darkness just makes it that much harder to find the light.” After another nearly fatal disaster with Astor at the beach house, Caggie is forced to confront the falsehoods she has told her family and friends and let go of her guilt over her sister’s death. Though Caggie makes a point of telling readers that her paternal grandfather called people like her “phony,” almost nothing is made of the connection to Catcher in the Rye, and it serves merely to make Caggie’s tale suffer by comparison.
Flat secondary characterizations and humdrum dialogue won’t keep teens from relishing this histrionic tale of love, death and lies. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-3316-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Although it may not satisfy as a novel, its characters will no doubt resonate with teen readers who share their struggles...
A new group of students join Mr. Ward’s poetry class in the companion novel to Bronx Masquerade (2003).
A group of black, white, Asian, and Latinx high school students in Mr. Ward’s class practice the art of poetry in preparation for a weekly open-mike reading each Friday. Through poetry, the students navigate their concerns and fears about themselves, their families, and their futures. As they prepare for the class’s culminating event—a poetry slam competition—the students bond and grow more comfortable revealing themselves through their poems. Each student’s story is introduced and explored in rotating first-person chapters. There’s brown (not black) Puerto Rican Darrian, an aspiring journalist who lost his mother to cancer; 16-year-old Jenesis, a blue-eyed, blonde, black girl who worries what will happen when she ages out of the foster-care system at 18; Chinese-American Li, who hides her love of poetry from her parents; African-American Marcel, whose father wasn’t the same when he returned home from prison; and several others. Unfortunately, the characters’ personal struggles remain largely static throughout the novel, and there’s no overarching plot or compelling conflict among them. Much of the dialogue feels forced and doesn’t ring true as the voices of present-day teens; aside from a few poignant moments, the students’ poetry tends to be heavy-handed.
Although it may not satisfy as a novel, its characters will no doubt resonate with teen readers who share their struggles and aspirations. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-24688-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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