A gripping and fiercely moving tale with a rough magic all its own.
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Two restless teens discover a magical but dangerous paradise for delinquents in this YA fantasy novel.
Holliday Ringo O’Raff and the story’s initially unnamed narrator (later nicknamed “Bogart”) are both 14 and have been best friends for several years, having grown up in harsh circumstances in North Phoenix: “our insides were knives. We hungered for something intangible.” That something appears late one summer night when the friends happen upon a portal to another reality: Nowhere Park, a sort of Never-Never Land for punk kids with booze, drugs, skateboarding, and treehouses. After a bloody initiation, the boys discover that they have a gift for theft, and they become part of a gang, or “suit” in Nowhere Park, called the Bandits; other suits include the Brains, Bashers, and Creeps. Supernatural terrors are another facet of this new world, and Holliday and Bogart must face them when they’re targeted by the park’s new king—an ordeal that changes them forever. Samuelle, whose first novel was the magical-realist The Jovian Spark (2015), offers a compelling coming-of-age story like no other. The narrator’s voice is literary, even luminous, but also authentically hardscrabble; Holliday, for example, is described as having “a solid layer of tightly-wrapped sinew over bones made of used car parts and bad intentions.” The story embraces the boys’ outsider perspective as an honest stance in a corrupt world while unblinkingly revealing the park’s hardships, treacheries, and terrors—a world where the boys find purpose but also loss. Early on, Bogart sees his future as “full of scared nights and wild parties and near-deaths and blood oaths and broken windows and bad promises and maybe an early grave.” By the novel’s end, he glimpses other possibilities for himself, which would have been impossible if he hadn’t been shaped by his experience in Nowhere Park.
A gripping and fiercely moving tale with a rough magic all its own.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-6537-8668-6
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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This tear-jerker will leave readers wanting to follow the next chapter in Darius’ life.
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Darius Kellner suffers from depression, bullying by high school jocks, and a father who seems to always be disappointed in him.
When Darius’ grandfather becomes terminally ill, Darius, along with his parents and younger sister, travels to Iran for the first time in his life. Iranian on his mother’s side and white American on his father’s side, Darius never quite fits in. He’s mocked for his name and nerdy interests at Chapel Hill High School in Portland, Oregon, and doesn’t speak enough Farsi to communicate with his Iranian relatives either. When he arrives in Iran, learning to play the Persian card game Rook, socializing, and celebrating Nowruz with a family he had never properly met before is all overwhelming and leaves Darius wondering if he’ll ever truly belong anywhere. But all that changes when Darius meets Sohrab, a Bahá’í boy, in Yazd. Sohrab teaches Darius what friendship is really about: loyalty, honesty, and someone who has your back in a football (soccer) match. For the first time in a long time, Darius learns to love himself no matter what external forces attempt to squash his confidence. Khorram’s debut novel is filled with insight into the lives of teens, weaving together the reality of living with mental illness while also dealing with identity and immigration politics.
This tear-jerker will leave readers wanting to follow the next chapter in Darius’ life. (Fiction. 12-adult)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-55296-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
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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
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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