A sincere, endearing coming-of-age tale about a daughter and her single mom.
A teen discovers her mother’s old diary in this debut YA novel.
Now that she’s almost 16, Velvet Underwood is old enough to ask her mother for the truth about her father. He left them both when Velvet was just 6 months old. “My mama has a past, one she’s proud of (so she says), and in Sack City everyone knows everyone’s business (so she also says),” narrates Velvet. “And maybe she’s right, because it’s no secret Mama was involved with Diamond Jim, my daddy.” Velvet knows little about Diamond Jim other than that he was handsome, good at bowling, and drove a Cadillac. (Her mother is happy to tell Velvet that she was named for the material of the car’s back seat, on which she was conceived.) She also knows her mother, the wine-slugging Lynette, is much whispered about around Sack City, a straight-laced town where people “act like Jesus is the mayor.” Then one night, Velvet finds Lynette’s diary and can’t help herself from taking a look inside, figuring—correctly—it might contain a few more facts about the mysterious Diamond Jim. It does, but they are not at all the tidbits that Velvet was hoping to discover. For one thing, she learns that there was a baby conceived in the back of Diamond Jim’s Cadillac early in her parents’ courtship—but it wasn’t Velvet. The miscarriage is just one of a number of very adult facts that color the image Velvet has long held in her mind about her parents, and the revelations arrive just as she’s beginning to take her own first steps into romance. Velvet decides she needs to meet Diamond Jim and maybe convince him to come back to Lynette. But will Velvet’s meddling in Lynette’s private life help provide her with a better sense of her origins or simply confuse things even further?
Strommen’s prose, as narrated by Velvet, is buoyant and earnest, as here when her first date asks if it’s OK to kiss her: “Bobby Johnson is going to kiss me. Oh Lord Jesus, he’s going to kiss me! I want to ask Mercy what she thinks, but I can’t. I have to act fast. I decide it has to happen sometime—most girls my age have already had their first kiss.” The novel is set in the South some indeterminate number of decades in the past, and the whole book is infused with a heavy dose of nostalgia. The tone may prove a bit treacly for some, but beneath it, the characters, particularly Lynette and her own mother, Ditty, brim with pathos. Sack City manages to come off as cruel and homey at the same time, and Velvet’s circle—which includes her best friend, Mercy, and eventually Bobby—provides a safe place from which she can consider the struggles of the previous generations. It’s a sentimental tale for sure, but one that many readers will enjoy quite a bit.
A sincere, endearing coming-of-age tale about a daughter and her single mom.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2022
ISBN: 9798985024296
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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