A page-turning coming-of-age tale that offers an offbeat spin on the YA suspense genre.
In author Vincent’s debut, a Midwestern teenager learns that everything she’s been told about her childhood is a lie.
Bright, outgoing, and athletic Loretta “Retta” Brooks, a 15-year-old girl in small-town Buckley, Iowa, has been home-schooled her whole life and has spent a lot of time alone. Her mother has long told her that they were the sole survivors of a van accident that killed Retta’s father and all four of her grandparents. Now, as the teen enters public high school, she still feels the effects of her mom’s constant hovering, as the latter works in the school lunchroom. Her mother explains that she’s preoccupied with Retta’s safety and security because of the long-ago accident. But when Retta later tries to secure a copy of her birth certificate from their native Nebraska, only to come up empty-handed, she starts to doubt the murky car-crash account. She soon realizes that her mother has been feeding her a false narrative. A shocking criminal act makes Retta call a phone number that her mother made her memorize for emergencies, which sends her into a Midwest underground of protective strangers and safe houses. There are certainly elements of this story that call to mind the psychological thrillers of Mary Higgins Clark, but Vincent intriguingly chooses to focus on the young protagonist’s feelings of anger, grief, rebellion, and helpless bewilderment when she finds out that nothing she thought she knew is true—including her own name. (Readers may also recall Robert Cormier’s 1977 YA mainstay I Am the Cheese.) The story occasionally pairs Retta with Jack, a potential boyfriend from a Punjabi immigrant household whose members deal with their own issues of control and conservatism; this adds an intriguing multicultural note to the story and deepens its exploration of themes of identity. The author also appends an essay to her gripping story, addressing domestic violence and the personal and social pathologies it breeds.
A page-turning coming-of-age tale that offers an offbeat spin on the YA suspense genre.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5092-2903-1
Page Count: 324
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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