Several of the right ingredients languish under infelicitous execution.
A psychological thriller promises scandal and drama.
This novel seeks to intertwine two narratives. One is about white 17-year-old Rosie Velvitt and her physically and emotionally threatening home life, which pushes her to extremes (such as booking johns for her best friend, who turns tricks for cash) in order to find a birth mother she thought long dead. The other is about Rosie and her best friend, Mary Perkins (also white), and the truth about why their relationship seems to revolve around instances of explicit sexual violence. While the former enjoys rich development in a nuanced, first-person consideration of family, friendship, and the breaking points for both, the latter feels like a trauma-exploitative gimmick and rests on an implausible (though not impossible) manifestation of mental illness. In what seems to be a collision between Brock Cole’s The Facts Speak for Themselves (1997) and Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender (2006), the dropped hints and whiplash-inducing twist ending throw the entirety of the narrative prior to the last page into new light. While this may hit the mark for some Shyamalan-enthusiast readers, it will disappoint those less entertained by ugly tropes around mental health stigma or simply expecting an intentional inclusion of mental disability to be more thoughtful than a repellent plot twist.
Several of the right ingredients languish under infelicitous execution. (Thriller. 14-17)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54864-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
A sweet look at an end-of-life moment that offers surprise even as the inevitable unfolds.
Two brothers watch over their father during his last days while looking toward an uncertain future.
When Oscar and Vance's father gets in a car accident, the doctors discover that his alcoholism is destroying his liver and warn him that he must stop drinking. But he doesn't, and now his sons, both white, are staying near his bedside at the hospice to make sure they're with him when he dies. Artistic, quiet Oscar and lacrosse-playing, boisterous Vance couldn't be more different, though, and instead of coming together, they're still fighting. It doesn't help that their mother died in a car accident three years earlier after a terrible fight with their father. How will their family work with half of it missing? However, grief can do strange things to a family. Will it rip them apart or pull them closer than ever before? Walton creates flawed, realistic characters that invite readers to root for them even as they screw up their own lives and the lives of those around them. The back-and-forth structure told in alternating voices (Oscar’s in the present and Vance’s recounting the past) is accomplished and offers a deep look at the complex relationship between two brothers. Although the plot and dialogue can feel manufactured and simplistic, characters and story are compelling.
A sweet look at an end-of-life moment that offers surprise even as the inevitable unfolds. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3507-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
A smartly plotted examination of the despair that keeps people in their places and the hope that pulls them out of it.
Two impoverished teens drift along different paths.
Fifteen-year-olds Jakub Kaminsky (white, the son of a Polish-immigrant single father) and Lincoln Bear (a brown-skinned First Nations boy whose family lives off the reservation) are making the best of their small lives. The two friends enjoy going out at night and tagging their neighborhood as Morf and Skar. When Lincoln’s brother Henry returns from prison, Lincoln is slowly pulled into Henry’s gang, the Red Bloodz. Meanwhile, Jakub gets a free ride to the fancy private school across town. As their lives separate for the first time the two boys face different challenges on their own, and the author smartly assays how even the smallest of choices can lead toward destruction and self-sabotage. The cyclical nature of poverty and despair is a running theme here, ever present and honestly portrayed. Lincoln and Jakub are both distinct, fully formed characters who are supported by a cast of characters that bring out different facets of their personalities and also exemplify how different support systems shape perspective and attitude. The novel has very little humor, but it doesn’t dwell in the maudlin either. There’s a journalistic “just the facts” approach here that greatly appeals. This straightforward approach lends legitimacy to the novel’s final act, one that in lesser hands would come off as over-the-top pulp nonsense.
A smartly plotted examination of the despair that keeps people in their places and the hope that pulls them out of it. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4597-3746-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Dundurn
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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