To win over a glamorous but unscrupulous girl, an unhappy youngster uses the household money and her mother’s credit card to buy her new chum the latest fashions. Taylor blames herself for the accident that killed her little sister and for her mother’s subsequent depression. The only bright spot in her life is her friendship with childhood buddies Sam and Sophie. But suddenly Sam and Sophie seem to be growing away from her, and the daily grind of cleaning, shopping, and cooking for herself and her despondent mother is taking its toll. So when Kat, a beautiful but troubled older shopaholic who aspires to model stardom, befriends her, Taylor is willing to bend her morals to keep her new pal happy. Although this largely gloomy story ends on an optimistic note for the protagonist, an all-pervasive sense of gray keeps the material flat and it fails to generate the emotional wallop that it should. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85138-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
When Ben’s father went to Willamette View, where Ben is starting as a freshman, he was a killer quarterback. Ben, also a talented football player, has always been proud to be a chip off the old block, until the day his father announces he is gay and moves in with his lover. Deeply ashamed, Ben does his best to keep his father’s new life a secret, especially from his tough- talking, hyper-masculine fellow athletes. As Ben struggles to act cool and be one of the guys, he learns that no one is immune from social pressure and that most of his contemporaries posture and pretend. The characters, while sympathetic and understandable, aren’t emotionally involving, and the ending—Ben gets emergency help from his father’s lover and realizes that he still cares for his father—is too pat. Bechard (My Mom Married the Principal, 1998, etc.) is particularly good with dialogue; her characters’ off-center, awkward conversations reveal a lot, while sounding clumsily authentic. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88547-9
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
A quirky cast and some heavy issues never quite mesh in this ineffective tale about a teenager who discovers some ugly truths about her small town in 1961. Despite having lived in Quiver, Oklahoma, her entire life, Frannie Driscoll doesn’t know that her town is segregated until Raymond Chisholm and his daughter, Celeste, arrive for a brief stay. Disturbed by the way Celeste, the school’s only African- American student, is shunned and insulted, Frannie makes awkward overtures that are coolly received, but soon result in friendship. After dropping hints about her father’s research, Celeste shows Frannie a hidden room in the attic of her house and later relates a horrifying tale of Ku Klux Klan atrocities in Quiver in the 1920s. For no obvious reason, Grove keeps present prejudice and past racism separate, disassociating the contemporary cast from any taint of the Klan, even though it’s logical to think that some of the area’s white families had ancestors who were members. A subplot involving Frannie’s mother and a sexist employer only muddies the waters; a protest that Celeste’s classmates mount comes as a surprise, considering their earlier behavior; and the irony is anything but subtle when Celeste is cut from the school choir just before a statewide competition that is, predictably, won by an integrated group. Celeste—beautiful, mature, worldly, and a great singer—comes close to being a type; Frannie’s other friends are an engagingly diverse lot, which lightens the ship, but not enough to keep it afloat. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23207-9
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
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