A lively and absorbing story with all the drama of teen life.
Magnolia has a chance to dance her way out of her small, coastal Oregon town and into stardom on a reality TV show called Live to Dance.
Magnolia, an 18-year-old with “perfectly pecan color” skin, needs to get away from the shaming she and her white half sister, Rose, face because of their absent mother’s actions. Many of Summerland’s residents steer clear of them, even while they’re digging clams to make ends meet. Magnolia’s audition takes her to LA, where she’s plunged into a diverse cast of hopeful teens, all under the scrutiny of judges who pick them off one by one. Like Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games, the contestants are prepped by stylists to reveal their individual back stories: “You look perfect,” Magnolia’s assures her. “Raw. Wearing your own sores.” TV and internet viewers watch clips of the dancers’ reactions to being on the show and the interactions among them, along with weekly dance performances. The fast-paced story moves away from the theme of Magnolia’s love of dance and into a soap opera laced with betrayal, breakups and hookups, friendships lost and gained. Life lessons abound, as Magnolia’s dance instructor’s encouragement to “dig deeper” is reflected in Magnolia’s clam digging as a metaphor for escaping the psychological distress that holds her back from her dreams.
A lively and absorbing story with all the drama of teen life. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5107-0686-6
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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