A complex depiction of a family in turmoil.
A Punjabi girl and her family reconcile their Indian customs and Sikh faith with their new lives in late-20th-century America.
Mira Singh is grieving a loss too shameful to talk about. Growing up in a mostly White suburb in Long Island after her family left Queens, she was teased for her hairy legs and Indian lunches, but she had memories of a happy childhood and her faith in Guru to anchor her. When her sister, Ritu, falls in love with a Muslim boy and is quickly married off to a fellow Sikh to avoid gossip, Mira starts to see flaws in the customs she never questioned before. Her brother Jazz was mercilessly bullied at school, and her brother Jeet felt the heavy weight of living up to his parents’ expectations at all costs. Mira and her siblings each experiment with activities their parents forbid and struggle to understand against a backdrop of worries about community judgment. It’s not until the Singhs suffer a terrible loss that they are forced to consider each other’s perspectives. Chapters move forward and backward in time, slowly revealing the central mystery in a tantalizing way, ultimately flashing forward to 2018. The writing feels heavy-handed at times, but the book encourages readers to wrestle with questions of parental abuse, individual dreams, personal sacrifice, and religious faith as Mira and her siblings navigate a multitude of challenges.
A complex depiction of a family in turmoil. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781627204262
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Apprentice House
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)
In the three years following Eden’s brutal rape by her brother’s best friend, Kevin, she descends into anger, isolation, and promiscuity.
Eden’s silence about the assault is cemented by both Kevin’s confident assurance that if she tells anyone, “No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever,” and a chillingly believable death threat. For the remainder of Eden’s freshman year, she withdraws from her family and becomes increasingly full of hatred for Kevin and the world she feels failed to protect her. But when a friend mentions that she’s “reinventing” herself, Eden embarks on a hopeful plan to do the same. She begins her sophomore year with new clothes and friendly smiles for her fellow students, which attract the romantic attentions of a kind senior athlete. But, bizarrely, Kevin’s younger sister goes on a smear campaign to label Eden a “totally slutty disgusting whore,” which sends Eden back toward self-destruction. Eden narrates in a tightly focused present tense how she withdraws again from nearly everyone and attempts to find comfort (or at least oblivion) through a series of nearly anonymous sexual encounters. This self-centeredness makes her relationships with other characters feel underdeveloped and even puzzling at times. Absent ethnic and cultural markers, Eden and her family and classmates are likely default white.
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4935-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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