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
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
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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