A charming, inventive YA novel about discovering who you really are.
In Schafer’s YA novel, a plucky teenage girl tries to locate the father she’s never met.
All Gwen Pendergrass knows about her father is that her mother, Karen, met him in Las Vegas. The only pictures Gwen has of him are on a strip the couple took in a casino photo booth. For the 16 years since then, it’s been just Gwen and her mom, living in a one-bedroom apartment on Karen’s waitressing earnings. Karen wanted to be a writer, but mothering duties took precedence. Trying to help her mom realize her dream, Gwen secretly applies, on Karen’s behalf, to a writing program at Yale, but even with the special scholarship she’s offered, there’s not enough money for Karen to go back to school. Then Karen shares new information with Gwen: Her father had just sold one of his novels in a major movie deal, and he never even knew Karen was pregnant. With this small piece of information, Gwen resolves to figure out who her father is and try to convince him to assist in paying for Karen’s schooling. For help, she enlists her best friend, Peter, the bread-baking, refrigerator-shaped son of two hippies. It’s the perfect plan…as long as nothing goes wrong. Unfortunately for Gwen, pretty much everything goes wrong almost immediately. Gwen narrates the story in first person, and her chatty, incisive voice quickly enthralls the reader. Here she discusses her hometown: “An alka-seltzer of a former town, whose old buildings often look like they’ve been sitting there dissolving away over the years ever since the proud city of Roxbury was eaten by Boston and dissolved into the melting pot of greater Bostburbia….” The book ostensibly takes place during the Obama administration, though aspects of it feel even older (Gwen routinely refers to the internet as “the Web”), which may confuse some younger readers. Even so, there’s a timeless, almost cinematic quality to the characters and story structure that many readers will happily sink right into.
A charming, inventive YA novel about discovering who you really are.Pub Date: July 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781958456040
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Moon Jumper Press
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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