Engaging storytelling with diverse characters and a deft mix of mystery, the supernatural, and real-life, relatable teen...
In this sequel, two bullied middle schoolers continue to display a talent for befriending ghosts, untangling mysteries, and solving murders.
In the first installment of Paavola’s (Jack and the Beanpole, 2019, etc.) series, two smart eighth graders—tall and skinny white girl Breanne Thurman and short Sonny Etherly, who is black—bonded over their abilities to communicate with the dead and their relegation to the cafeteria “nerd table.” Now, not long after solving a murder, assisting a trio of ghosts haunting their school, and learning that they can speak to each other telepathically, the two friends face a double challenge: help five more spirits “cross over” and cope with Breanne’s relentless bully, the leader of the school’s mean girls. The first ghost, Ashni “Firefly” Patel, died a violent death at the school in the 1950s along with sad, frightened first grader Luis Sanchez and sullen Timmy O’Brien, a leather-jacketed teen. At the zoo, Breanne and Sonny meet two more ghosts of ’50s vintage, seemingly unrelated to the first three (or are they?): the zoo’s one-time veterinarian and the lion in his care. This fast-moving tale of suspense and the supernatural, told through the distinctive first-person voices of Sonny, Breanne, and Ashni, is seamlessly grounded in the real-world issue of bullying. Indeed, few characters in the book, living or dead, are (or were) unaffected by bullying, some as bullies themselves. Despite ghostly intercessions on Breanne’s behalf, Paavola doesn’t offer glib solutions. What shines through, without losing the plot’s momentum, are some root causes of bullying and the importance of a proactive school administration, communication, tools for de-escalating anger, and supportive peers and adults. Sonny has his grandmother (Grams) to confide in; Breanne has her grandfather; and they both have a sympathetic science teacher. Diversity is easily organic to the narrative, with characters described as black or white; so are Grams’ frank recollections of segregation in the ’50s, leading Sonny to understand Luis’ and Ashni’s experiences as “two ‘not-white’ kids in an all-white school.”
Engaging storytelling with diverse characters and a deft mix of mystery, the supernatural, and real-life, relatable teen issues.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
