Harrowing but cathartic.
A heartbreaking love triangle, for readers who can’t stand love triangles.
Once, 17-year-old Meredith “Mer” Hall loved the ocean, indie music, and especially Ben Collins, her lifelong best friend–turned-boyfriend. Now she fears the sea, resents any human connection, and especially loathes herself for the way she ruined things. Still, even after hurting him so badly, she treasures the few secret hours she can snatch with Ben; so when new boy Wyatt Quinn—handsome, cocky, barely hiding his own pain—starts to get close, Mer’s afraid of risking her fragile stability. Alternating between flashbacks of her slowly developing relationship with Ben and her current efforts to cope with her crumbling life, Mer’s spiky, acerbic narration cannot conceal the agonizing undercurrents of insecurity, grief, and despair. The lushly described setting in North Carolina’s Outer Banks echoes her interior landscape: bleak, desolate, and subtly off-kilter. The twisty narrative avoids problem-novel territory, instead engaging with and exploring the underlying issues surrounding trust, autonomy, teenage sexuality, and depression frankly and nonjudgmentally, with more emphasis on emotional ramifications than graphic details. Secondary characters (like the protagonists, apparently all default to white) are loving and mean well but are hobbled by their own flaws and mistakes. Some readers might find the big reveal a bit over-the-top, but with Mer’s final choice—both unexpected and oh-so-right—a final dollop of magical realism provides a sweetly hopeful conclusion.
Harrowing but cathartic. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62414-711-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense.
Everyone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago—except Pippa Fitz-Amobi.
Pip has known and liked Sal since childhood; he’d supported her when she was being bullied in middle school. For her senior capstone project, Pip researches the disappearance of former Fairview High student Andie, last seen on April 18, 2014, by her younger sister, Becca. The original investigation concluded with most of the evidence pointing to Sal, who was found dead in the woods, apparently by suicide. Andie’s body was never recovered, and Sal was assumed by most to be guilty of abduction and murder. Unable to ignore the gaps in the case, Pip sets out to prove Sal’s innocence, beginning with interviewing his younger brother, Ravi. With his help, Pip digs deeper, unveiling unsavory facts about Andie and the real reason Sal’s friends couldn’t provide him with an alibi. But someone is watching, and Pip may be in more danger than she realizes. Pip’s sleuthing is both impressive and accessible. Online articles about the case and interview transcripts are provided throughout, and Pip’s capstone logs offer insights into her thought processes as new evidence and suspects arise. Jackson’s debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives. Pip and Andie are white, and Sal is of Indian descent.
A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9636-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Truly fantastic.
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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