Honest and illuminating.
A teen with a rare illness struggles to bridge her hospital and school relationships.
Ellie Haycock insists that her high school friends—especially her boyfriend, Jack—never know how thoroughly VACTERLs affects her life. If they knew, surely they’d abandon her, just as her elementary friends did. The genetic disease has left Ellie with heart, kidney, spine, and limb issues. She’s had over 40 surgeries, and now she and Mom are staying in hospital lodging while Ellie’s doctors investigate a troubling new lung issue. Worse, Mom not only decides on Ellie’s medical treatments but publicly blogs about Ellie’s experiences and the stress of raising a disabled child. Luckily, Caitlin Barrie, Ellie’s “best hospital friend,” is a fellow VACTERLs veteran, ready to dispense support and no-nonsense advice. New hospital friends provide further distraction—especially Ryan Kim. Though Ryan’s insistence that Ellie should trust doctors who can’t fix her is as frustrating as Caitlin’s urging her to trust her friends, his tough love begins to feel unnervingly like romantic love. But Ellie’s pervasive distrust risks destroying her home and hospital friendships alike. Though the secondary characters feel somewhat two-dimensional, and Ellie’s development comes late in the story, Schreiber, who has VACTERLs herself, portrays myriad challenges of chronic illness, including post-traumatic stress from surgery, with often brutal frankness. Ellie’s relationship with her mother is gut-wrenching and nuanced, exploring issues of privacy, sacrifice, guilt, and love. Ellie and Caitlin read white; Ryan is cued Korean American.
Honest and illuminating. (author’s note) (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781250892164
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring.
When Death-Cast doesn’t call, fate intertwines the lives of two boys, both haunted by their pasts and with futures they can’t escape.
In this third installment of the series that opened with 2017’s They Both Die at the End, Paz Dario waits every night for Death-Cast to call—as it should have for his father nearly 10 years ago, when Paz shot him to save his mother’s life. But the call never comes. Death-Cast killed Paz’s dreams of an acting career: No one will hire him now because the world sees him as a villain. When Paz tries (not for the first time) to put an end to his suffering, an unexpected encounter with Alano Rosa, the heir of Death-Cast, stops him. Both in a place of desperation, Alano and Paz sign a contract to live for Begin Days instead of waiting for their End Days. As suspenseful and emotionally wrenching as the previous titles in the series, this new installment explores heavy themes of abuse, mental health, self-harm, and suicide. Paz grapples with a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Silvera surrounds Alano and Paz with a web of complex relationships. Although the protagonists fall fast for one another and form a deep connection over Alano’s desire to support Paz, Silvera emphasizes the importance of professional help. Both Alano and Paz have Puerto Rican heritage. The cliffhanger ending promises more to come.
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring. (content warning, resources) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780063240858
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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