Despite some issues, the novel opens important conversations about faith, family, independence, and identity.
When genderfluid Zo moves in next door to Libby and her evangelical Christian family in rural Tennessee, their unlikely friendship changes Libby’s life.
Libby, who has five younger siblings, has little exposure to life outside her family’s isolated home, where her father’s word is law. She’s prepared to fulfill her duty of marrying young and bearing children, even if she’s beginning to realize that’s not what she wants. Things change when Zo’s family moves into the neighborhood and the two teens strike up a friendship. Zo’s family, liberal and fully supportive of Zo’s genderfluidity, are the antithesis of Libby’s family. When Libby’s parents cease contact with their neighbors, Libby must decide whether to obey her parents or maintain her friendship. Crucially, neither teen attacks the other’s beliefs or way of life; instead, Zo gently challenges Libby’s teachings about a woman’s subservience. Although the somewhat stiff narration alternates between Libby’s and Zo’s perspectives, the story belongs to Libby as she questions what she’s been taught (“The only way I’ve ever been is the way I’ve been told to be”). Disappointingly, readers don’t gain much insight into Zo’s genderfluidity and are never introduced to Zo’s personal pronouns (Libby presumes she/her/hers). The primary cast assumes a white default except for Zo’s friend Claire, a Thai-American transgender girl.
Despite some issues, the novel opens important conversations about faith, family, independence, and identity. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-941110-66-9
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Three Rooms Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A biggest loser.
A fat teen employs patently unsafe weight-loss techniques on reality television and gets skinny.
Emery’s face-lifted, Botoxing mother named her after a manicure tool, yet somehow Emery doesn’t fit in with her swimsuit-model, boob-enhanced sister or fitness-freak father. What if she weren’t fat? She acquiesces to the filming of a weight-loss reality show in her home, wanting the prize—if Emery loses 50 pounds in 50 days, she’ll win $1,000,000—but author Baker, chief news correspondent of E! Entertainment Television, makes skinniness itself the golden goal, snarkily bashing fatness from the start. The show’s producers require intense exercise and severe calorie restriction; behind their backs, Emery adds laxative tea and Adderall. Attempts to satirize the extremity—the nutritionist who takes Emery down to 790 calories per day authored How to Eat without Actually Eating—have the impact of Post-it notes on a billboard. Baker wants it both ways: Laxatives, speed and “insanely low” calories give Emery both “an eating disorder” and “good habits,” a cognitive disconnect if ever there was one; moreover, the eating disorder vanishes after its single mention, ending the story on a bizarrely upbeat note. Continuity inconsistencies may well drive readers crazy; that 790-calorie diet could well be a 395-calorie diet, for instance, but it’s just not clear. Family secrets and reality TV twists aside, this is a cheap instruction guide for dangerous dieting.
A biggest loser. (Fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7624-5014-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Running Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Here’s hoping the second volume will prove a lighter hand and a truer heart.
In this first book of a series, a 16-year-old tries to repair a friendship she destroyed five years before.
Gemma’s summer begins with her sweet, steady boyfriend’s sudden decision to break up. Then circumstances require Gemma to leave her BFF and stay with her dad—in the Hamptons, a place that holds awful memories. It was here that 11-year-old Gemma, devastated by the possibility of her parents’ divorce, broke up her father and his new girlfriend, Karen, by doing horrendously mean things to her and her daughter, Hallie. Karen and her family return for vacation, and Gemma first runs into Josh, Hallie’s handsome brother, but due to her massive makeover, she goes unrecognized. It is then she decides to make it up to Hallie by doing a multitude of kind things for her. But soon Gemma’s falling for Josh, and the complex plot thickens. There is much for teen readers to like here: snappy and snippy dialogue, embarrassing situations, blossoming romance, pool parties and the constant tension of maintaining a secret. But the plot threads strain the moorings of credibility, and readers will have to be willing to suspend truckloads of disbelief to stay engaged. And due to the hefty infusion of mean-girl morality, it’s a challenge to stick by the main characters.
Here’s hoping the second volume will prove a lighter hand and a truer heart. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04524-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
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