A sweet reminder that family extends beyond the bounds of blood.
Surprising news changes a young woman’s life.
Nothing exciting happens in rural Green Woods, Pennsylvania, and Calliope Silversmith wouldn’t have it any other way. She has the loving guidance of her mothers, Mama and Mimmy, and a siblinglike camaraderie with lifelong best friends Ginger and Noah. Levelheaded Calliope has never been in love and has successfully stuck with her no-dating-before-college rule. Then Max moves in next door. The teens have an instant rapport filled with easy banter—and Calliope’s rule goes out the window. While many almost-18-year-olds are excited to vote or get their first tattoo, Calliope makes an important decision of her own: to contact the sperm donor who made her life possible. Calliope gets the shock of her life when she learns that her donor is Max’s father. With the love and support of her moms and her friends to prove it, Calliope has always known that blood isn’t the only thing that makes a family. She wants to keep Max in her life, but how can she transform romantic love into something acceptable for half siblings? First-person narrator Calliope is self-aware as she struggles to redefine her relationship with Max, and supporting characters have growth arcs that evolve naturally. The plot is neatly divided in two parts: before the news and after. Most characters are White; biracial Max’s mother is Black, and he identifies as Black.
A sweet reminder that family extends beyond the bounds of blood. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4664-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
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