A wacky adventure with entertaining characters but underdeveloped themes.
In Noah’s YA novel, a teenager’s casual hike in the woods turns into a zany search for a missing alien.
It’s the summer of 2019, and high schooler Violet Wilson is on a mission to resurrect the journalism club and student newspaper at Sky View High, near Bend, Oregon. She hopes to use them to fight against the sexist, “self-satisfied, pigheaded culture…growing like mold in her school.” However, just as she’s about to put together a proposal with best friend, Pamela Edison, Violet is tasked by her mother to babysit her two youngerbrothers, young teen Brad and 6-year-old Willys. Pamela convinces Violet to take her siblings on a hike in the hope that they’ll be distracted enough to give the girls time to work. During the outing, the boys stumble upon a silver flying saucer, which oddly contains a single peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Meanwhile, the U.S. governmenthas made contact with alien creatures called Goobexes who happen to look just like PB&Js; the extraterrestrials are searching for their lost child, Goobex 3. The kids soon find themselves on an epic adventure to bring Goobex 3 back to its parents, including dizzying helicopter rides to FBI facilities; meetingswith a nonsensical, Donald Trump-like U.S. president; encounters with alien technology; and manhunts in the forest. Noah’s novel delivers fun sibling dynamics as it touches on some intriguing subjects, including media literacy and conspiracy theories. However, it doesn’t dig into these topics’ complexities in a significant way; for example, Violet is often portrayed as thinking about the truth behind things (“Many of the students I know have learned to reject facts in favor of slogans. They give more weight to personal bias than to science and history”), but her ruminations are so brief that they come off as platitudes, leaving little room for further engagement.
A wacky adventure with entertaining characters but underdeveloped themes.Pub Date: April 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798887316918
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Fulton Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2024
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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