Life proves as haunting as death in this well-crafted ghost story.
Teens overcome troubled lives through metaphysical and spiritual opportunities in this poetic sequel.
After being humiliated by her zealot father and unsupportive mother, Jenny drifts away, leaving her body open for Helen, a 130-year-old ghost still mourning her untimely death. A ghostly companion to creative people, Helen seizes the opportunity to become corporeal and connect with kindred spirit James, who occupies the body of drug-abusing juvenile delinquent Billy. Helen only uses Jenny for six days, but even the gentlest spirits can cause destruction, and Jenny unwillingly returns from an astral-projection adventure to a shattered life and ruined reputation. She seeks comfort in Billy’s company, and together they try to come to terms with their trauma and to remember their out-of-body experiences. To chilling effect, Whitcomb skillfully incorporates the unsettling and grotesque aspects of the living teens’ family lives—Billy’s abusive childhood, Jenny’s fanatical parents (like characters from a Stephen King novel)—and Helen’s disastrous death and separation from her daughter. Jenny’s and Helen’s voices are distinct and passionate, though the shifts between narrators and planes of existence can be disorienting. Jenny’s reconstruction of events revisits the same characters and setting as A Certain Slant of Light (2005) but offers further literary and elegiac contemplation of life, love and the afterlife.
Life proves as haunting as death in this well-crafted ghost story. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-36754-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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