A feel-good novel about being dead? Only in this quirky, even romantic story.
Sarah Evans would never be caught dead in mango, until, well, she wakes up dead in a mango chiffon dress at Minnesota’s Mall of America. The 16-year-old New Yorker, the victim of food poisoning intended for her wealthy father, finds herself among other teens, all murdered, from New York City. They become stuck at the mall while they take care of unfinished business in the living world and reconcile their feelings for their new state of being. Unlike her fellow humans (alive or dead), Sarah has a gift, called the Knowing, which allows her to foresee unfortunate events in the future. While she wasn’t able to stop her own mother’s death, she may be able to thwart her new, greedy stepmother’s attempt to kill her father. But she’ll need the help of her fellow mall-mates. Although time and socio-economics would have prevented many of them from knowing one another, they become fast friends. Sarah’s conversational, quick-paced, first-person narrative, full of “deadly” puns and idioms, recounts how she and her new BFFs (even in death?) work together. And when Sarah finds love in the process, she realizes she’s only learned how to live by being dead.
Sure, the plot is inconceivable, but isn’t life? And death? (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-51246-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
Since the moment Bryn was born, she was destined to take her place among the Roths.
Even after her parents died and she was taken to live with her great-aunt Sariah in Nimsmire, far away from the filth of the big city and the infamous Roth reputation, Bryn was destined to eventually become wrapped up in her family’s less-than-proper line of work—which was the cause of her parents’ deaths. When she returns to the city of Bastian on her 18th birthday, something she has eagerly anticipated after growing up in a small city under Sariah’s watchful eye, she is finally forced to come to terms with her identity and assume her rightful position in her family’s mysterious business. This feat would have been difficult enough on its own, for Bryn isn’t accustomed to her family members’ crude behavior, but she certainly isn’t prepared to meet the handsome, strong, brooding silversmith in her family’s employ; Ezra Finch definitely complicates things. This fast-paced tale with a Victorian feeling is filled with an abundance of scandal, high fashion, intrigue, and, of course, romance. While the large cast of characters is at times difficult to keep straight and the plot-driven prose would have benefited from more worldbuilding detail, the delightfully swoonworthy love story will keep readers engaged and the pages turning eagerly as they hurtle toward the book’s satisfying conclusion. Characters are White by default.
An entertaining story of forbidden love, family drama, and elegant couture. (family tree) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-82372-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE
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Many teen novels touch on similar themes, but few do it so memorably.
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Two struggling teens develop an unlikely relationship in a moving exploration of grief, suicide and young love.
Violet, a writer and member of the popular crowd, has withdrawn from her friends and from school activities since her sister died in a car accident nine months earlier. Finch, known to his classmates as "Theodore Freak," is famously impulsive and eccentric. Following their meeting in the school bell tower, Finch makes it his mission to re-engage Violet with the world, partially through a school project that sends them to offbeat Indiana landmarks and partially through simple persistence. (Violet and Finch live, fortunately for all involved, in the sort of romantic universe where his throwing rocks at her window in the middle of the night comes off more charming than stalker-esque.) The teens alternate narration chapter by chapter, each in a unique and well-realized voice. Finch's self-destructive streak and suicidal impulses are never far from the surface, and the chapters he narrates are interspersed with facts about suicide methods and quotations from Virginia Woolf and poet Cesare Pavese. When the story inevitably turns tragic, a cast of carefully drawn side characters brings to life both the pain of loss and the possibility of moving forward, though some notes of hope are more believable than others.
Many teen novels touch on similar themes, but few do it so memorably. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75588-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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