Dreadful.
A 19-year-old junkie with delusions of grandeur falls for a 14-year-old prostitute in this poor approximation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel.
Drug addict and punk guitarist Alexander spends his days in a depressed Midwestern town drinking enough alcohol and smoking and shooting enough drugs to put down a bull elephant. Still, he manages to show up to band practice on time and woo Patti, a mullet-headed, song-writing Lolita whose motives are suspect from page one. Alexander believes that he and Patti will run away to New York and live druggily ever after. But after Patti’s drug dealer/pimp threatens to chop off his limbs with a chain saw and leave him to “these four rabid badgers that I keep… in a shack,” he has second thoughts. It's written like a bad rap song; readers will have four-letter-word fatigue within the first 20 pages—and there are still nearly 500 to go. The characters are flat, the constant drug use gratuitous and the graphic, occasionally violent sex scenes pornographic. By the time the author commits the cardinal sin of plugging one of his own previous titles within the text, readers will be too numb to care. Teens looking for gritty content are better off checking out the award-winning work of Adam Rapp or Ellen Hopkins.
Dreadful. (Fiction. 16 & up)Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4627-4
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A refreshingly nuanced narrative about gender in the Middle East.
When Zarin Wadia dies in a car crash with a boy named Porus, no one in her South Asian community in Jeddah is surprised—what else would you expect from a girl like that?
Originally from Mumbai, half-Parsi, half-Hindu Zarin moved in with her aunt and uncle after her mother died. The family relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to escape rumors about Zarin’s mother’s death, plunging her into a world of abuse and gender-based restrictions against which she rebelled. It was only after Porus, a Parsi friend from Mumbai, moved to Jeddah for work that Zarin began to reconsider her behavior—and her capacity for love. Featuring a diverse cast of Arab and South Asian characters of various classes and faiths, the story is a gripping and nuanced portrait of how teens, both boys and girls, react to patriarchy (the novel contains graphic descriptions of abuse and sexual assault). Bhathena’s prose can be stilted, and her excessive use of multiple voices limits both character development and the resolution of some storylines. In addition, the beginning and ending chapters narrated by Zarin’s ghost feel disjointed from the otherwise searingly realistic narrative. All in all, though, the book is a fast-paced, fascinating read about a community rarely seen in young adult novels in the West.
A refreshingly nuanced narrative about gender in the Middle East. (Romance. 16-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30544-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
A novel that will prompt readers to contemplate their own methods of escapism.
Something bad happened to 16-year-old Sadie Black.
Waking up in the hospital, she learns that she was calling out for George, her best friend and occasional Prince Charming. Her other best friend is Lucie Washington, a black girl from her cross-country team. Sadie’s friendship circle is small, and there is something special about her relationship with George, something she fears others won’t understand. Sadie, a white girl who has been running away from her problems, now finds herself dealing with the fallout from another incident five years ago. Readers enter the mind of a teenage girl who has mastered the art of keeping secrets and exploring imaginary worlds and stories, save for moments when it gets out of her control and she must fight to rein herself back in. With prose that pulls you into the story, debut novelist Redd leads readers through the worlds conjured by Sadie. The complicated but loving relationships between Sadie and those who orbit her world are shown in empathetic ways. The angst and anguish of Sadie’s loss, grief, and confusion are evident. Still, the handling of the mental health themes leaves much to be desired: Some of Sadie’s problematic views are not fully resolved or explained, and the therapist reads like a prop who does little to help her heal.
A novel that will prompt readers to contemplate their own methods of escapism. (Fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6687-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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