A true but lackluster tale of teenage drug smugglers.
A multimillion-dollar drug-smuggling operation led by a high school Spanish teacher thrived in Southern California throughout the 1970s until it was brought down by the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Based on these facts, Nichols’ account has all the makings of a gripping, dramatic story but disappoints in its weak treatment. The story focuses on teenager Eddie Otero and Lance Weber, an ex-con in his 20s, and spans both several years and the globe. Although the tale is presented as a nonfiction account and, with One Cut, by Eve Porinchak, launches the Simon True nonfiction series, the absence of source notes makes it impossible for readers to discern which dialogue and situations are recorded fact. Extended exchanges of (frequently banal) conversation test credulity, and novelistic flourishes abound: “Eddie stacked the bills, smelled them, and stuffed them into his pocket; a girl at the bar used her middle finger to dab gloss on her lower lip, watching him. He grinned at her, knowing in one surge of eye contact that his life had just changed forever.” Even as strictly pleasure reading, the story is surprisingly uncompelling. The young protagonists lack depth and development. Aside from fleeting moments of suspense during their drug smuggling activities, the narrative's pace is static. Nichols offers little insight into the characters’ motivations and fails to reveal any overarching conflicts or themes.
A true but lackluster tale of teenage drug smugglers. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8107-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Moving and brutal, a poetic remembrance of a tragedy too vast to forget.
A harrowing poetic evocation of the infamous concentration camp.
Though this award-winning poet has combed the bright expanse of the poetic spectrum, dabbling in lighter subjects and forms (A Foot in the Mouth, 2009, etc.), here Janeczko returns to a dark historic moment where artists met unspeakable tragedy, not unlike his poetic exploration of the 1944 Hartford, Conn., circus fire that claimed over 150 lives (Worlds Afire, 2007). He tells the grim tale of Terezín, the Czechoslovakian town transformed by the Nazis in 1941 into Ghetto Theresienstadt, a temporary way station for Jewish artists and intellectuals herded from Prague en route to the gas chambers. Estimating 35,000 perished in Terezín, Janeczko creates over 30 poems loosely representative of the experience of the 140,000-some European Jews who passed through the camp prior to its liberation by Russia in 1945. Drawing on research and haunting illustrations from Terezín inmates, Janeczko effectively portrays the graphic horror of such twisted incarceration from the perspective of both captive and captor. For example, imprisoned young Miklos’ admission, “I am fragile / with fear,” starkly contrasts that of SS Captain Bruno Krueger, who seems to savor describing an execution: “I ordered my Jews closer. / Close enough to hear / the twig snap of his neck.”
Moving and brutal, a poetic remembrance of a tragedy too vast to forget. (Poetry. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4727-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
Heading into adulthood from the younger end of Eat, Pray, Love territory, two young college grads with itchy feet take most of a double wanderjahr to test their coupledom overseas. In quick, good-humored black-and-white sketches that occupy at least half of nearly every page, Weinberg not only evokes a sense of place in depicting apartments and street scenes but displays an unusual ability to capture fleeting expressions, poses and the emotional tenor of momentary encounters. The two build funds of self-confidence teaching English to children in Beijing, dawdle their way through Southeast Asia, then settle in Mali for most of a year for a Fulbright-funded research project. Occasional brushes with police, illness and hostile locals or disenchanted fellow travelers aside, Scieszka maintains an upbeat tone in her episodic, present-tense travelogue—noting the destructive effects of politics, poverty and tourism but focusing on the pleasures of new friends, new foods, adapting to local conditions, being grownups (“It’s liberating! It’s…full of pressure”) and finding reasons to get “out of bed on the other side of the world even when it’s raining, you haven’t made any friends yet and you’ve got the travel shits like whoa.” Newly fledged adults (and even those with plenty of mileage under their wings) will find both entertainment and perhaps a dollop of inspiration. (Travel memoir. 16 & up, adult)
Pub Date: March 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-527-8
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
