Excellent characterization makes this piece shine. Mike’s in her third year of high school in the town where she’s always lived. When gorgeous Xanadu arrives (sent from the city for dealing drugs that killed someone), Mike falls head-over-heels in love. Xanadu is straight—but seems to be sending vibes. Peters weaves Mike’s yearning for Xanadu together with Mike’s love/hate feelings about her father, who committed suicide two years earlier. Mike follows in his footsteps by doing plumbing jobs with his old equipment. She excels at it, but she also excels at softball; which should she pursue? Must she leave this small town, or is everything she needs right here? Mike’s a gritty and absorbing mix of pain and strength; Peters’s other characters are also realistically complex (with the exception of Ma, whose fatness is used as a cheap symbol of dysfunction). Peters avoids casual assumptions—that college is necessarily better than plumbing, for example, or that gender is simple—to paint a memorable portrait of this girl and the small town she calls home. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-316-15881-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Megan Tingley/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
A searing romance.
Two girls wounded by their past relationships grapple with the undeniable intensity of their feelings for one another in this novel based on the pop-star author’s popular song and music video.
Seventeen-year-old Coley, who is White and Japanese, braces for impact as a minivan hurtles toward her in a parking lot. The crash never comes, but in that moment, she and fierce Sonya, beautiful with her tan skin and dark hair and eyes, collide. Horrible circumstances brought Coley to small-town Oregon; after her mom’s suicide, she’s raw with grief and stuck living with the dad who abandoned her when she was 3. Wealthy, competitive dancer Sonya feels no less trapped. Afraid of rejection and loneliness, she buries her true self to appease her perfectionist mother and the demanding ex-boyfriend who refuses to let her go. Unspoken attraction pulls Coley and Sonya together, but the masks they wear to protect themselves from their pain create a barrier that may keep them apart. Set in the summer of 2006, the novel alternates Sonya’s public and private LiveJournal posts that reveal her side of the story with Coley’s first-person narration. Sharp, poetic prose heightens the emotional and romantic drama. References to early 2000s pop and alternative music in Sonya’s posts create a playlist that sheds more light on her feelings. Coley demonstrates satisfying character growth as she opens up to herself and others. Apart from Coley, most characters are presumed White.
A searing romance. (content note) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781250817631
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
