A delightfully lively rom-com.
Southern California high school junior Sharlot Citra had everything planned out for her first time.
What she did not plan for was her mom walking in on her and her boyfriend. Meanwhile in Jakarta, George Clooney Tanuwijaya, son of the country’s second richest family, is caught by his father in a similarly racy solo situation. George’s dad and sister decide he needs a girlfriend and set up an online profile for him. The perfect match comes in the form of one Sharlot Citra—or at least Sharlot’s mom, who’s likewise committing a catfishing scheme to set up her daughter with a respectable boy. Mama has whisked Sharlot off for her first trip to Indonesia to spend the summer learning how to jadi orang, or succeed as an adult. Horrified but resigned, the teens reluctantly meet, and an awkward coffee date spirals into a fake relationship for the press; George is the public face of an etiquette app for teen boys that his family’s company is launching. Can a less-than-honest beginning lead to genuine connection? Sutanto’s novel is full of hijinks, humor, and heart. Beyond the fake online personas are two teens with lots to connect over. Sutanto gives dimension to the secondary characters, exploring interpersonal expectations and misperceptions. Readers are swept along as Sharlot discovers her mother’s home country, including naming quirks, dynamite coffee, layered history, and a conservative social climate. Most characters are Chinese Indonesian; biracial Sharlot is White and Chinese Indonesian.
A delightfully lively rom-com. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43397-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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