With her father away fighting Turks and her mother so often “under the weather,” still grieving over long-dead son Edward, 15-year-old Rosalind James has grown independent visiting the bazaar with her Indian friend, Isha, and causing comment among the other British officers’ wives at the club. Rosalind’s headstrong and helpful nature gets her into trouble quickly when her father returns from the front in 1919. He fires a man too old to sweep the family house, and the old sweeper sells his grandchild to feed the family. Rosalind saves the baby but nearly finds herself sent to England for a proper education. Only her mother’s fear that Rosalind will die as Edward did allows Rosalind to stay in her beloved India. However, when she becomes interested in what the famous Gandhi is preaching (not to mention the handsome Max Nelson); Major James packs Rosalind off to live with her aunts. How will a girl raised in India survive the cold climes of a homeland she’s never visited? What will her sweet Aunt Louise and her prickly Aunt Ethyl make of their impetuous niece? National Book Award winner Whelan’s characters are more types than people, and there is little of the flavor of the subcontinent in this overstuffed, occasionally pleasant tale of a plucky young woman in Raj-era India. (Historical fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: April 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0931-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This novel may mean well, but it fails to find a balance between romance and the reality of regime change
An American teen visiting her Egyptian grandmother in Cairo witnesses the beginnings of the Arab Spring movement.
After being caught at a wild high school party, Mariam and her best friend, Deanna, are sent to spend the remaining five months of the school year with her conservative grandmother in Egypt. Mariam dreads her grandmother’s legendary strictness: “[F]rom the stories my baba [father] has told me…I would probably have more freedom in jail.” But Deanna, who “loves anything Egyptian,” immediately embraces the adventure. (Deanna’s tastes run toward romance novels featuring stereotypical illustrations of “pseudo-Arab lover boy[s]” on the covers.) Mariam’s initial mockery of her friend’s books later becomes ironic when the plot begins to center more heavily on romantic entanglements than the rebellion against President Hosni Mubarak. By the end of the teens’ stay in Egypt (which ends up being a mere five days), both girls have found boyfriends for themselves and a love match for the grandmother. The timeline makes the many musings on true love more mawkish than believable. Meanwhile, there are so few scenes about the demonstrations in Tahrir Square or meaningful conversations about the political landscape that readers will develop little sense of the historical significance of the real Egyptian rebellion.
This novel may mean well, but it fails to find a balance between romance and the reality of regime change . (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4926-0138-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strong effort that stumbles short of the finish line.
An eighth grader writes a song that perfectly captures how he feels about being stuck between childhood and adulthood.
Anthony's in a tough spot. He's feeling disrespected in the classroom and at home. The only place he feels valued is in the after-school Rock Band Club, a program in which he and his friends excel. After a particularly tough day, Anthony stays up all night writing an angst-y anthem that goes viral. His band mates want to play the song at the school's talent show, but will the administration let them play a song with a couple f-bombs in it? Emerson's prose captures the early-teen mood swings well, but it feels weird coming from a character who does fairly well in school and has two loving parents who support his musical interests. When his song crescendos with a repeated, screamed "F*** THIS PLACE!" it’s hard not to wonder what it is exactly he hates—a point his club adviser tries to get at as well. Regardless, the narrative momentum keeps readers invested in Anthony’s moral conundrum. Unfortunately the book's ending fizzles out in the most disappointing—if realistic—way possible, failing to provide any sort of satisfying resolution to Anthony's problems.
A strong effort that stumbles short of the finish line. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-39112-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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