It’s a predictable romance about two smart white teens, but it’s an entertaining and even touching one.
June thinks high school is merely a stopgap between childhood and real life until she starts carpooling with the star jock.
June is a snob. She believes that her alt musical choices and AP classes mean she doesn’t have to engage with the rest of the high school herd. She starts riding to school her senior year with Oliver, whose exuberance for socializing, athleticism, and pop music allows June to rest easy in the notion that he’s a simple “jock-hole.” However, “I care about every single minute, because I know that everything here does matter,” Oliver says, and he begins a wager that he can expose examples of meaning, while June’s task is to highlight meaninglessness. The winner gets to pick songs for the ride-to-school playlist. In present-tense first person, June describes how, in a succession of mornings, they get to know each other better and how Oliver keeps shocking her with his sensitivity and vast vocabulary. True to genre form, June and Oliver haltingly fall for each other and learn that there’s more to a person than meets the eye. Klein paints a realistic portrait of modern teen life, including divorced parents, gossip, sex, and drinking. Beneath June’s veneer of cynicism, though, is a hopeful vision of youths who are nervous and excited about starting adult life.
It’s a predictable romance about two smart white teens, but it’s an entertaining and even touching one. (Romance. 12-18)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-50982-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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