A quick summer read to reassure teens who worry about college or blooming where they’re planted.
Silverman’s debut offers several takes on a good question: “Why do so many people equate growing up with leaving?”
Unlike her mother, who enters and exits her life at whim, white, 17-year-old Anise has lived—and surfed—in Santa Cruz her whole life. Her easygoing father and a diverse group of friends provide stability—especially Eric, her white best friend, who’s turning into something more. As the friends plan their last summer together before college, Anise’s plans are shattered. Her aunt has been in a car accident, and Anise and her dad will be spending the summer in Nebraska caring for her aunt and high-spirited cousins. Anise’s reluctance to leave, rooted in worries of forgetting home and being forgotten, will resonate with readers who’ve ever been homesick. While babysitting her cousins, she meets Lincoln, a black, smart, handsome, witty one-armed skateboarder whose personality quirks are rattled off in lists rather than revealed through interactions. As Anise trades surfing for skating, she gradually matures, feeling a responsibility to her cousins and sympathy for her aunt and father. Nomadic, nature-obsessed Lincoln, whose only flaws seem to be a messy glove compartment and an inability to sing, is an ever patient teacher, showing Anise how to adapt to new places and call them home.
A quick summer read to reassure teens who worry about college or blooming where they’re planted. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4686-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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