Smart, sex-positive—and positively terrific.
A Christian teen has a medical problem that makes it impossible for her to have intercourse.
Monique is a 17-year-old Black Baptist preacher’s daughter in a small Texas town. Everyone expects her and her boyfriend, Dom, to do everything properly (read: no sex before marriage). However, because they’re in love and will eventually get married, Monique figures there’s no need to wait. But after two years together and secretly trying dozens of times, unsuccessfully, to have intercourse, Dom ends the relationship. Reeling from the breakup, Monique learns she has vaginismus—her vaginal muscles contract involuntarily, preventing penetration. The condition is caused by trauma, fear, guilt, or shame, and Monique has been raised to think of sex as dirty and bad. She wants to “fix” herself quickly and win Dom back, so she turns to two unlikely sources for help: Sasha, a seemingly straight-laced church girl, and Reggie, a troubled kid Monique’s father hopes to rehabilitate. Along her unorthodox healing journey, Monique makes some surprising discoveries about her family and, more importantly, about herself. As described in a note to readers, Monique’s story does much to raise awareness of vaginismus and directly confront toxic views about sex. Thanks to Goffney’s superb storytelling and dazzling prose, this candid exploration of a sensitive subject is also a heartfelt, funny, and irresistible read.
Smart, sex-positive—and positively terrific. (Fiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-302484-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A high-concept premise that falls short in its execution.
A teenage girl finds herself alone after everyone else in her town mysteriously disappears, leaving her scrambling to figure out how to find them all.
One late summer day, everybody in July Fielding’s town disappears. She is left to piece together what happened, following a series of cryptic signs she finds around town urging her to “GET THEM BACK.” The narrative moves back and forth between July’s present and the events of the summer before, when her relationship with her best friend, cross-country team co-captain Sydney, starts to fracture due to a combination of jealousy over July’s new relationship with a cute boy called Sam and sweet up-and-coming freshman Ella’s threatening to overtake Syd’s status as star of the track team. The team members participate in a ritual in which they jump off a cliff into the rocky waters below at the end of their Friday practice runs. Though Ella is reluctant, Syd pressures her to jump. Short, frenetically paced sections move the story along quickly, and there is much foreshadowing pointing to something terrible that occurred at the end of that summer, which may be the key to July’s current predicament, but there is much misdirection too. Ultimately this is a story without enough setup to make the turn the book takes in the end feel fully developed or earned. All characters read white.
A high-concept premise that falls short in its execution. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780593327173
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring.
When Death-Cast doesn’t call, fate intertwines the lives of two boys, both haunted by their pasts and with futures they can’t escape.
In this third installment of the series that opened with 2017’s They Both Die at the End, Paz Dario waits every night for Death-Cast to call—as it should have for his father nearly 10 years ago, when Paz shot him to save his mother’s life. But the call never comes. Death-Cast killed Paz’s dreams of an acting career: No one will hire him now because the world sees him as a villain. When Paz tries (not for the first time) to put an end to his suffering, an unexpected encounter with Alano Rosa, the heir of Death-Cast, stops him. Both in a place of desperation, Alano and Paz sign a contract to live for Begin Days instead of waiting for their End Days. As suspenseful and emotionally wrenching as the previous titles in the series, this new installment explores heavy themes of abuse, mental health, self-harm, and suicide. Paz grapples with a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Silvera surrounds Alano and Paz with a web of complex relationships. Although the protagonists fall fast for one another and form a deep connection over Alano’s desire to support Paz, Silvera emphasizes the importance of professional help. Both Alano and Paz have Puerto Rican heritage. The cliffhanger ending promises more to come.
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring. (content warning, resources) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780063240858
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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