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
In his first novel translated into English, Herrndorf sits squarely and triumphantly at the intersection of literary tall...
Social misfits hit the Autobahn.
Mike Klingenberg has just finished another boring, socially awkward year in middle school and is staring down a solitary two-week stint at home, thanks to his mother’s latest round of rehab and his father’s “business trip” with a suspiciously attractive personal assistant. Just as he’s watering the lawn, imagining himself lord of a very small manor in suburban Berlin, class reject Tschick shows up in a “borrowed” old Soviet-era car, and the boys hatch a plan to hit the road. Mike’s rich interior life—he meditates on beauty and the meaning of life and spins self-mocking fantasies of himself as a great essayist—hasn’t translated well to the flirtatious physical swagger required by eighth grade. Tschick, meanwhile, is a badly dressed Russian immigrant who often shows up to school reeking of alcohol and who is also given to profound leaps of psychological insight. Their road trip (destination: Wallachia, a German euphemism for “the middle of nowhere”; also a region of Romania) is peopled by unexpected, often bizarre, largely benign characters who deepen Mike’s appreciation for humanity and life. Each episode in the boys’ journey grows more outrageous, leading readers to wonder how far they’ll go before coming to a literal screeching (and squealing) halt.
In his first novel translated into English, Herrndorf sits squarely and triumphantly at the intersection of literary tall tale and coming-of-age picaresque. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-48180-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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This sophomoric sophomore effort reads like a rough draft for a screenplay…which it may well be.
High school senior Carson Phillips will get into Northwestern and be the youngest freelance journalist published in all the major outlets, and he’s not above blackmail to get there.
Although he’s single-handedly kept the Clover High Chronicle in print and the Writing Club functioning (by teaching the journalism class, one of many credulity-stretching details) for years, Carson is worried that he won’t get into his dream school. The acceptance letter will be his ticket out of the backward town of Clover which, like high school, is peopled by Carson’s intellectual inferiors. When his counselor suggests he edit and submit a literary magazine with his application, Carson and his dim, plagiaristic sidekick Malerie hatch a scheme to blackmail a chunk of the student body into submitting work. Colfer’s joyless and amateurish satire is little more than a series of scenes that seem to be created as vehicles for lame and often clichéd one-liners. Once Carson’s bullied his classmates (stereotypes one and all) into writing for him, he develops a soul and dispenses Dr. Phil–worthy advice to his victims—and he’s confused when they don’t thank him. Carson is so unlikable, so groundlessly conceited that when lightning literally does strike, readers who’ve made it that far may well applaud.
This sophomoric sophomore effort reads like a rough draft for a screenplay…which it may well be. (Fiction. 15-17)Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-23295-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
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