A new take on a timeless theme—it gets better.
A Canadian teen copes with bullying and instability at home and discovers life-affirming friendship in Dobbie’s YA debut.
The daily indignities and tortures of social exile shape a woefully recognizable high school experience far more even than classes or prom. Add to the vile bullying at school an unstable, neglectful mother, who uses alcohol and hoarding as emotional crutches, at home, and you get Aggie Murphy’s life. Dejected and exhausted, at the mercy of her popular tormenters and her spiraling mother, Aggie comes up with a plan to record and reveal her bullies’ depravity to everyone, and she invites other outcasts to join her in her revenge. But when a fellow outcast escapes her own torment by suicide, Aggie’s coping becomes increasingly desperate and destructive as the stakes rise higher and higher. Dobbie offers a glimpse into the paradoxical bubble of normalcy that can be built around everyday suffering, until of course the bubble bursts. The deftly handled complexities of mental illness, trauma, and self-harm provide a complicated emotional landscape, enrichened by characters’ resilience and humor. Heavy-handed representation of adult imperfections nonetheless paired with the directive to “tell an adult” chips away at authenticity, moving uncomfortably close to victim-blaming; likewise, a troubling framing of fatness and weight loss detract from overall affirming characterization. All characters are assumed white, with the result that racially motivated bullying does not appear.
A new take on a timeless theme—it gets better. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77086-523-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: DCB
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
A summer romance that’s a delightful read in any season.
Cass Adler has a rule: “Absolutely no dating summer girls. Ever.” Unfortunately for her, Birdie Gordon is irresistible.
Cass is a hardworking lifeguard on the beaches of Newport, Rhode Island. She loves her friends, family, and neighborhood—and hates the entitled summer tourists. Cass is headed to MIT in the fall, and she has to make as much money as she can to help pay her way. When wealthy George Gordon, who owns the many rental properties Cass’ father manages, offers to pay Cass to keep an eye on his wild, flighty daughter, Cass reluctantly agrees. But between the forced proximity and emotional memories of their childhood friendship, Cass finds herself caught in Birdie’s orbit. Birdie, on the other hand, has been nursing a secret crush on Cass for years. Both girls are white and bisexual; Birdie is a well-known social media influencer with a boyfriend. The narrative not only chronicles the teens’ slow-burn romance, but also deftly addresses the underlying issues present in their relationship, including wealth, class differences, the privilege of being able to come out on your own terms, and the volatile nature of social media. This fast-paced enemies-to-lovers romance will keep readers turning the pages, eager to see whether Cass realizes that not all summer girls are the same, and that some, in fact, might be worth everything.
A summer romance that’s a delightful read in any season. (Romance. 13-17)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9780593696897
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Tackles deep subjects but misses the mark.
A complicated story of family dysfunction blended with a frothy romance.
Seventeen-year-old Olivia Schwartz’s drive masks the intense anxiety she’s carried since finding her beloved older brother dead six years ago. Her parents never mention Logan; her 5-year-old twin brothers don’t even know he existed. But on a family cruise, carefree Jules—an old summer camp friend who happens to be there too—tempts Olivia to put aside the science fair research that could get her a prestigious internship with a surgeon, drink alcohol to ease her social awkwardness (consider it “a trial run” for college parties, Jules says), and go after sexy fellow passenger Sebastian. Olivia’s deep repression starts to ease as she tries a more relaxed teen life for the first time, but when she opens up about Logan, Sebastian and Jules keep saying things about him that bother her, leading to an explosive revelation that shakes up Olivia’s understanding of her family. Wooden characters serve only to reflect and refract Olivia’s story, and the thin plot contrivances are distracting. The thematic disconnect is troubling: This is both a book in which addiction is a leitmotif and also one in which problematic drinking is normalized, as Olivia repeatedly asks for Jules’ flask to ease her emotional distress. Olivia is Jewish, and most characters read White; Jules is cued East Asian, and there is some diversity in race and sexuality in the supporting cast.
Tackles deep subjects but misses the mark. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 9780063230996
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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