A campy, popcorn read.
After a drug replaces their mental ailments with psychic gifts, a group of written-off teens must use their new abilities to solve a murder.
An ostensible group-therapy meeting brings them all together: Z (depressed, white, rich girl), Sabrina (addicted to pills, biracial Japanese and African-American, incredibly beautiful), Andrew (hypochondriac, white), Gabby (OCD, white), and Justin (anger problems, Latino, star football player). Instead of the school counselor, they’re met by people claiming to be clinical therapists starting a new program for those whose parents have given up on them completely—information they share with the teens. The next morning, psychic gifts show up: retrocognition (object-triggered visions of the past), supermath, clairaudience (hearing others’ thoughts), psychokinesis (moving things with the mind), and communicating with ghosts. The therapists reveal themselves as FBI agents who’ve given the teens a secret serum so they can use their new abilities to solve a murder—that of an ex–FBI agent and the serum’s inventor, whose serum stash is missing. The teens enjoy their gifts and the sense of direction that the mission gives them, as well as reprieve from their issues, until a teen ghost warns them not to trust the agents. The well-executed, fast-paced mystery plot turns slightly creepy with a romantic storyline between one of the teens and an FBI agent; though he’s young at 22, the subplot lays a skeevy coating over the fun. The ending teases a sequel.
A campy, popcorn read. (Science fiction/thriller. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77138-844-3
Page Count: 344
Publisher: KCP Loft/Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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