Refreshing characters bring new life to classic romance tropes.
A spring break full of disappointment, bad choices, romance, tattoos—and self-realization.
High school junior Ashley’s ultimate goal is to leave Brooklyn behind and achieve success as a software engineer in Silicon Valley. Between being a mathlete, belonging to a coding club, and tutoring classmates in math, she has been doing everything she can to prove to colleges that she’s dedicated to studying STEM. Ashley believes she’ll have no trouble landing a summer internship with the popular social media platform ZigZag. However, her two-week spring break is off to a poor start when they send her a rejection letter. Frustrated with having tried to do everything right, when she runs into her crush, Walker, she decides to put herself out there and have more fun. Jason, Ashley’s lifelong friend and literal boy next door, warns her that Walker is bad news, however. When Jason joins Ashley’s coding team for a spring break hackathon, she starts to see something special in the boy who has been there all along. Ashley comes across as authentic and driven—but not consumed—by her ambitions, and the role of STEM in the story is both natural and noteworthy. Ashley’s sometimes-misguided choices feel genuine, and her disappointments real. Main characters are White by default; surnames indicate some diversity in the supporting cast.
Refreshing characters bring new life to classic romance tropes. (Romance. 12-18)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18011-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Underlined
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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
A standing ovation.
Tackles family secrets, toxic masculinity, and socio-economic differences with incisive clarity and candor.
Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and yearns to go to Columbia University in New York City, where her father works most of the year. Yahaira Rios, who lives in Morningside Heights, hasn’t spoken to her dad since the previous summer, when she found out he has another wife in the Dominican Republic. Their lives collide when this man, their dad, dies in an airplane crash with hundreds of other passengers heading to the island. Each protagonist grieves the tragic death of their larger-than-life father and tries to unravel the tangled web of lies he kept secret for almost 20 years. The author pays reverent tribute to the lives lost in a similar crash in 2001. The half sisters are vastly different—Yahaira is dark skinned, a chess champion who has a girlfriend; Camino is lighter skinned, a talented swimmer who helps her curandera aunt deliver neighborhood babies. Despite their differences, they slowly forge a tenuous bond. The book is told in alternating chapters with headings counting how many days have passed since the fateful event. Acevedo balances the two perspectives with ease, contrasting the girls’ environments and upbringings. Camino’s verses read like poetic prose, flowing and straightforward. Yahaira’s sections have more breaks and urgent, staccato beats. Every line is laced with betrayal and longing as the teens struggle with loving someone despite his imperfections.
A standing ovation. (Verse novel. 14-18)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-288276-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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