Provocative entry centered on a sizzling topic.
A troubled Wisconsin teenager finds solid ground and grievous injury alike on the gridiron.
If a whole family could be said to suffer from PTSD it would be Isaiah’s, devastated by sudden, violent deaths. Bad friends and behavior have seemingly locked him in a downward spiral—until his parents offer a choice of football or a group home. In football, Isaiah not only finds salutary physical and mental challenges, but a perfect outlet for the destructive tendencies driven by his rage and grief. When the latest in a series of concussions leaves him struggling to cover up some scary symptoms, though, an agonizing dilemma presents itself: to walk away from both commitments to teammates and the source of his prized, hard-won stability or to stay on and risk permanent damage? By surrounding Isaiah with a supporting cast that, from ineffectual parents to clueless coaches and an alcoholic former girlfriend, seems notably weak on “support” potential, Herbach (Hooper, 2018, etc.) gives his conflicted narrator agency to make his own decision…but also sets up a climactic round of revelations and confessions that reveal those individuals to be less feeble than he supposed. Along with tackling the deadly hazards of concussions, this novel offers a bulletin to readers facing life-altering changes, telling them that they might not have to go through them alone. A lack of physical descriptions points to a white default. Backmatter not seen.
Provocative entry centered on a sizzling topic. (Sports fiction. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-245314-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Family mental illness is rarely explored in novels for teens, but this one, trudging a well-worn path across too-familiar...
Home for the holidays from her posh Pennsylvania boarding school, high school junior Emma is shocked to learn her mother’s long-hidden schizophrenia has resurfaced.
Emma feels blindsided by both her mother’s behavior—she suffers from the delusion that their family is under constant, creepy surveillance—and the belated disclosure of her illness. (Diagnosed years earlier, it’s been well-controlled with medication.) Emma seeks solace with her boyfriend, Daniel, but needy, anxious and subject to panic attacks, she wants more than he is prepared to give. Phil, whose brother is a fellow patient of Emma’s mother, is more understanding—and attractive. Emma’s fear of developing her mother’s condition isn’t easily assuaged, however. Daniel, Phil, her mother and other characters are briefly allowed to speak for themselves and then elbowed aside, sentenced to storytelling limbo so Emma can do it for them. A hands-on narrator, self-involved Emma’s hard to like. Title notwithstanding, hers is a narcissistic world of bright, overprivileged teens who in their copious free time enjoy casual sex, drink heavily, smoke weed and snort cocaine with friends and at home, with tacit parental consent if not approval, in settings ranging from affluent Westchester suburbs to a spacious apartment on Central Park West.
Family mental illness is rarely explored in novels for teens, but this one, trudging a well-worn path across too-familiar terrain, fails to fill the void. (Fiction. 15-18)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59514-789-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
A solid beach read.
A summer-at-the-beach story takes readers to Nantucket.
When 17-year-old Cricket is promised the chance to spend her summer on Nantucket at her best friend Jules Clayton’s vacation home, she’s psyched. In addition to lazy days at the beach, summer on Nantucket means the opportunity to connect with her longtime crush, Jay Logan. But when tragedy strikes the Clayton family, Cricket’s summer invite is rescinded. Undeterred, Cricket hatches her own secret plans to stay on the island to support Jules, but upon arrival, her plans fall through, leaving her without a place to stay, no summer job and on the outs with Jules. In a stroke of good luck, Cricket lands on her feet, finding a less-than-glamorous job at an inn that serves as her base for a summer of unexpected adventures and new friendships. Though the book has an overall lighthearted summer vibe, Cricket’s bumpy relationship with her divorced parents, especially her mother, and her fractured friendship with Jules ground the text, providing a welcome sense of reality in a tony island paradise. Cricket’s narration vacillates between hyperbole and thoughtful introspection, making the text feel uneven in places; this reflects Cricket’s development, as the narration matures along with Cricket.
A solid beach read. (Fiction. 15-18)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-6051-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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