Despite turbulence, an amusing airline-industry thriller that informs as it entertains.
The sequel to Unaccompanied Minor (2014) delivers another round of in-the-air shenanigans for would-be airline heiress April Mae Manning.
Gillespie starts her story in medias res, as April explains to readers that she may have shot Mr. Hackman, but she did not decapitate him. She quickly flashes back to her driver's-license road test, which is derailed when she sees her best friend, Malcolm, in the middle of being kidnapped by, among others, her no-good stepfather. In short order, April and the good-hearted crew of adults she rallied in her first outing are busy finding corpses, running from the law, and stowing away on the very L-1011 that was bombed only a few months before. The plot setup here is convoluted and sporadic, the introduction of new characters adding variety but also complexity that impedes focus. April's voice continues to charm, her dedication to the wisdom within the WorldAir flight-attendant onboard manual a throughline that both binds the story together and saves April's skin over and over. Her surveys of flight-attendant history are trenchant and illuminating, as in her discussion of 1960s-era "secret spawning wards...full of [pregnant] stewardesses trying to keep their circumstances on the down-low so they could retain their jobs."
Despite turbulence, an amusing airline-industry thriller that informs as it entertains. (Thriller. 12-16)Pub Date: June 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4405-6770-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Merit Press
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Quietly suspenseful, vividly character-driven, and poignant, with insights into cerebral palsy and the multiple meanings of...
A nonverbal teen becomes the “real-life password” to solving a terrible crime in this British import.
Sixteen-year-old Jemma has “no secrets of [her] own.” Quadriplegic due to cerebral palsy, she can’t move or speak and depends on her foster parents and her aide, Sarah, for everything from eating to using the bathroom. But people often share their secrets with her. After all, Jemma can never tell—even when Sarah’s sleazy boyfriend, Dan, hints at his involvement in a recent murder just before Sarah goes missing. But when innovative technology offers Jemma a chance to communicate, can she expose Dan’s secret before he silences her? Despite its suspenseful premise, the plot pales against Joelson’s (Girl in the Window, 2018) intimate, unflinching exploration of Jemma’s character; the book’s most powerful tension lies in Jemma’s simple, direct narration of her unrecognized, uncomfortably realistic frustrations and fears, such as patronizing adults who “don’t realize that [she has] a functioning brain” and her worry that her overwhelmed parents will stop fostering. Refreshingly, the author’s detailed depiction of augmentative and alternative communication explores both the joy of self-expression and the physical and mental effort it requires. Jemma’s bond with her chaotic but supportive foster family grounds the story, particularly her touching rapport with her younger foster brother, Finn, who’s autistic and also nonverbal. Most characters appear white.
Quietly suspenseful, vividly character-driven, and poignant, with insights into cerebral palsy and the multiple meanings of “family.” (Suspense. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9336-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Unabashedly didactic, but moving nonetheless.
A slacker learns life lessons from a slam-poet classmate in an inspiring if overly optimistic school story.
Grunge-rock devotee Sam has been trying to avoid the attention of teachers and other students ever since his mom left town two years earlier. Then the equally quiet Luis Cárdenas arrives in Sam’s English class, and meddlesome Ms. Cassidy seats the two of them together. Rumors fly about Luis: His brother is an infamous gangster, and there is a mean-looking scar on Luis’ neck. Sam doesn’t see Luis’ true colors until Ms. Cassidy announces that the class will have a poetry slam. Luis not only throws himself into creating a poem, he inspires Sam to do the same. The boys’ sudden, unmitigated enthusiasm for a school project may be hard to swallow, but there is something infectiously hopeful in Luis’ devotion to poetry, as well as in the inspiration Sam takes from old footage of Kurt Cobain. When Luis disappears after a gang fight, Sam, once a loner, teams up with classmates, teachers, neighbors and old friends to find out what has happened. Short, punchy sentences, paragraphs and chapters give the novel’s prose a sense of motion, and Luis’ poems, interspersed with the narrative, give readers added insight into Luis’ character.
Unabashedly didactic, but moving nonetheless. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9514-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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