Here’s a narrative experience readers won’t soon forget.
Twins Noah and Jude used to be NoahandJude—inseparable till betrayal and tragedy ripped them apart.
Nelson tells her tale of grief and healing in separate storylines, one that takes place before their art-historian mother’s fatal car accident and one that takes place after, allowing readers and twins to slowly understand all that’s happened. An immensely talented painter, Noah is 13 1/2 in his thread, when Brian moves in next door to their coastal Northern California home. His intense attraction to Brian is first love at its most consuming. Jude is 16 in hers, observing a “boy boycott” since their mother’s death two years earlier; she is also a sculpture student at the California School of the Arts—which, inexplicably, Noah did not get into. Haunted by both her mother and her grandmother, she turns to an eccentric sculptor for mentoring and meets his protégé, a dangerously charismatic British college student. The novel is structurally brilliant, moving back and forth across timelines to reveal each teen’s respective exhilaration and anguish but holding the ultimate revelations back until just the right time. Similarly, Nelson’s prose scintillates: Noah’s narration is dizzyingly visual, conjuring the surreal images that make up his “invisible museum”; Jude’s is visceral, conveying her emotions with startling physicality. So successful are these elements that the overdetermined, even trite conclusion will probably strike readers as a minor bump in the road.
Here’s a narrative experience readers won’t soon forget. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3496-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Fierce and fabulous fun.
A hopeful high school junior risks his social debut and the chance to escape his small town to take a stand against a femme-hating jock.
Like almost every LGBTQ+ teen in Mountain Pass, Washington, white femme Riley Weaver dreams of joining the glittering ranks of the Gaybutante Society. The Gaybutantes not only throw amazing parties, they provide a network of lifelong support. Being endorsed by a high-profile Gaybutante could secure Riley’s career as a podcaster and show his mom he has a future other than staying put and honoring their family’s local roots. All Riley needs to do is demonstrate the society’s pillars of excellence—service, hosting, mentorship, and spreading general gay chaos. However, when he overhears a gay jock classmate disparaging femmes, he can’t let the hatred slide. Determined to speak up, Riley makes a bet that he’ll find a cis, masc, gay guy who wants to escort him to the ball—or he’ll give up the society, which reflects and celebrates diversity, forever. With the bet as his inspiration for gay chaos, Riley launches a tell-all podcast documenting his romantic journey. This coming-of-age story deftly handles complex social themes of identity, social media fame, and discrimination within queer communities while maintaining a lighthearted tone. Amid the antics of fulfilling his pillars and pursuing love, Riley wrestles with jealousy, makes mistakes, and learns about meaningful apologies. A surprise twist brings the drama to a satisfying resolution.
Fierce and fabulous fun. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780063260030
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A standing ovation.
Tackles family secrets, toxic masculinity, and socio-economic differences with incisive clarity and candor.
Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and yearns to go to Columbia University in New York City, where her father works most of the year. Yahaira Rios, who lives in Morningside Heights, hasn’t spoken to her dad since the previous summer, when she found out he has another wife in the Dominican Republic. Their lives collide when this man, their dad, dies in an airplane crash with hundreds of other passengers heading to the island. Each protagonist grieves the tragic death of their larger-than-life father and tries to unravel the tangled web of lies he kept secret for almost 20 years. The author pays reverent tribute to the lives lost in a similar crash in 2001. The half sisters are vastly different—Yahaira is dark skinned, a chess champion who has a girlfriend; Camino is lighter skinned, a talented swimmer who helps her curandera aunt deliver neighborhood babies. Despite their differences, they slowly forge a tenuous bond. The book is told in alternating chapters with headings counting how many days have passed since the fateful event. Acevedo balances the two perspectives with ease, contrasting the girls’ environments and upbringings. Camino’s verses read like poetic prose, flowing and straightforward. Yahaira’s sections have more breaks and urgent, staccato beats. Every line is laced with betrayal and longing as the teens struggle with loving someone despite his imperfections.
A standing ovation. (Verse novel. 14-18)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-288276-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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