A light read for teens who love performing arts... and the other kind of drama.
An uneven narrative follows four aspiring young artists attending the Harlem Academy of Creative and Performing Arts.
An initial chapter from each character's point of view introduces the character and his or her major obstacle. La-La has a younger sister with cancer and an irresponsible mother. Reese produces hip-hop beats in secret, but her strict mother insists she only study classical music. Ziggy hides his dancing because his West Indian father is convinced that boys who dance are gay. Jamaica-Kincaid has convinced her rich, absentee parents that she attends boarding school in Connecticut. As the school year progresses, romances unfold, a rivalry heats up and secrets are revealed. Harlem's 125th Street provides a warm and welcome cohesion among the stories as multiple characters encounter the Sandman, “the official unofficial mayor of Harlem,” and Ziggy's brother, Broke-Up, whom Ziggy helps sell knockoff handbags with an illegal vending license. Some gaps and dropped threads in the plot are distracting: Readers see a character wake up from a hangover without having seen her arrive at the party that caused it, and a threat to the school's funding that initially seems significant is resolved off-page.
A light read for teens who love performing arts... and the other kind of drama. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7582-6128-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
In an unnamed country (a thinly veiled Philippines), three teenage boys pick trash for a meager living. A bag of cash in the trash might be—well, not their ticket out of poverty but at least a minor windfall. With 1,100 pesos, maybe they can eat chicken occasionally, instead of just rice. Gardo and Raphael are determined not to give any of it to the police who've been sniffing around, so they enlist their friend Rat. In alternating and tightly paced points of view, supplemented by occasional other voices, the boys relate the intrigue in which they're quickly enmeshed. A murdered houseboy, an orphaned girl, a treasure map, a secret code, corrupt politicians and 10,000,000 missing dollars: It all adds up to a cracker of a thriller. Sadly, the setting relies on Third World poverty tourism for its flavor, as if this otherwise enjoyable caper were being told by Olivia, the story's British charity worker who muses with vacuous sentimentality on the children that "break your heart" and "change your life." Nevertheless, a zippy and classic briefcase-full-of-money thrill ride. (Thriller. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-75214-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
A smart, timely outing.
Two teens connect through a mysterious podcast in this sophomore effort by British author Oseman (Solitaire, 2015).
Frances Janvier is a 17-year-old British-Ethiopian head girl who is so driven to get into Cambridge that she mostly forgoes friendships for schoolwork. Her only self-indulgence is listening to and creating fan art for the podcast Universe City, “a…show about a suit-wearing student detective looking for a way to escape a sci-fi, monster-infested university.” Aled Last is a quiet white boy who identifies as “partly asexual.” When Frances discovers that Aled is the secret creator of Universe City, the two embark on a passionate, platonic relationship based on their joint love of pop culture. Their bond is complicated by Aled’s controlling mother and by Frances’ previous crush on Aled’s twin sister, Carys, who ran away last year and disappeared. When Aled’s identity is accidently leaked to the Universe City fandom, he severs his relationship with Frances, leaving her questioning her Cambridge goals and determined to win back his affection, no matter what the cost. Frances’ narration is keenly intelligent; she takes mordant pleasure in using an Indian friend’s ID to get into a club despite the fact they look nothing alike: “Gotta love white people.” Though the social-media–suffused plot occasionally lags, the main characters’ realistic relationship accurately depicts current issues of gender, race, and class.
A smart, timely outing. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-233571-5
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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