Absolutely riveting and incredibly painful is the story of Janie, unable to connect emotionally with anyone, and clutching her incredible talent to sing as all else fails. Neglected by her addict mother, four-year-old Janie survives drowning to find herself in a foster home she calls “stink house.” Despite her blond hair and blue eyes, Janie decides to be black and names herself Leshaya after finding a brother in Harmon, a fellow foster child and comfort from her social worker Doris, both African-American. One day Mama Linda shows up and delivers her nonchalantly to a couple who turn out to be drug dealers who have always wanted a child. Leshaya’s marvelous voice and love of the ladies, Sarah Vaughn, Odetta, Billie Holiday, and especially Etta James convince her that she can skip regular life and become a star. Conning help out of kind strangers and lowlifes who intend to use her, time after time Leshaya’s twisted logic and “me” philosophy ruin things. Incapable of understanding love or compassion, Leshaya pushes away those who try to help her, and moves on, leaving wreckage behind. Nolan’s ability to tell the story from Janie’s point of view without excusing her make the disasters even more affecting. Janie’s singing lets out her pain in the blues, pain she’ll not admit even to herself. Powerful and gut-wrenching, the effect of each succeeding event is like a pile driver pounding all hope into the ground. And yet Leshaya captivates with her strength and determination to succeed even as she shows that she has no idea how to help herself. Writing with an astonishing clarity of voice, National Book Award–winner Nolan (Dancing on the Edge, 1997) has created another fiercely real character who elbows herself off the page. Unforgettable. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-201916-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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