by Graham McNamee ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999
In this bitterly funny debut, a teenager turns the “Frankenstein voice” that is the legacy of her father’s brutality from a liability into an asset. Alice hasn’t seen her father since the day, seven years ago, that he choked her, but she’s reminded of him every time she opens her mouth, or writes a song lyric that she can’t sing. Despite an almost unremittingly sarcastic mouth, she enjoys a close relationship (based in part on shared culinary preferences: “ ‘Pass the Cool Whip,’ ‘Where’s the brown sugar?’ “) with her vulnerable mother, Desiree, and also with Eric, a sweet, equally sarcastic classmate with a neuromuscular disorder that causes his right arm to twitch. Writing in clipped, jagged prose, McNamee creates a distinctive narrator’s voice for Alice that skillfully echoes her spoken one, but the story goes more directions than it can comfortably contain, e.g., before Alice can confront her father, who is dying of cancer, Eric introduces her first to his lonely, overweight, nightingale-voiced cousin, then to the singing of Tom Waits, whose “scratched, pitted, croaking voice” frees her to try her own. Some of the plotlines remain sketchy, but Alice is a terrific character, one whom readers will follow willingly through moments light and dark. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-385-32593-2
Page Count: 119
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
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by Rae Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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by Laura Resau ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2006
When Clara Luna, 14, visits rural Mexico for the summer to visit the paternal grandparents she has never met, she cannot know her trip will involve an emotional and spiritual journey into her family’s past and a deep connection to a rich heritage of which she was barely aware. Long estranged from his parents, Clara’s father had entered the U.S. illegally years before, subsequently becoming a successful business owner who never spoke about what he left behind. Clara’s journey into her grandmother’s history (told in alternating chapters with Clara’s own first-person narrative) and her discovery that she, like her grandmother and ancestors, has a gift for healing, awakens her to the simple, mystical joys of a rural lifestyle she comes to love and wholly embrace. Painfully aware of not fitting into suburban teen life in her native Maryland, Clara awakens to feeling alive in Mexico and realizes a sweet first love with Pedro, a charming goat herder. Beautifully written, this is filled with evocative language that is rich in imagery and nuance and speaks to the connections that bind us all. Add a thrilling adventure and all the makings of an entrancing read are here. (glossaries) (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-73343-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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