Timely subject matter and an adequate romance, but nothing super.
Geeky girl with absent father and quirky hobby meets unsuitable boy, then realizes Mr. Right has been under her nose all along.
Blaze's self-centered father, a caricature, left the family to become an actor, leaving her with only her name (from Ghost Rider's Johnny Blaze) and a love for classic Marvel Comics. Now, Blaze spends her time ferrying her 13-year-old brother Josh and his farting, breast-ogling, gay-joke–making friends to and from soccer practice. She has a crush on Mark, Josh's soccer coach, but their relationship fails to progress until Blaze's friend snaps a picture of Blaze trying on lingerie and sends it to Mark's phone. After a confusing and pressure-filled sexual encounter and Mark's subsequent brushoff, Mark posts the half-naked photo on clunkily named Facebook stand-in FriendsPlace, and it goes viral. The resultant bullying is harsh but believable, and it's satisfying to see Blaze channeling her hurt and anger into making comics and redecorating her Superturd of a minivan. Less impressive, however, are some of Blaze's asides to the reader (“Stuart is one of only three black students in our school....I feel somewhat hip and urban having him here at my house”) and the frequent subtle digs at girls being high-maintenance, stalkers, actual sluts and brainwashing feminists.
Timely subject matter and an adequate romance, but nothing super. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7348-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
A good story with some unexpected twists
After saving the life of a famous model, a 14-year-old Mexican-American boy learns the pressures of popularity and the definition of true heroism.
Dallas freshman Rawly Sánchez knows that life is not perfect. His older brother Jaime is in prison, while his mother’s Mexican restaurant is barely staying afloat. Now, he can’t even visit his brother on Saturdays anymore, or he will miss the required tutoring for the algebra class he is failing. Small bursts of happiness come in the comic books he loves and in hanging out with his nerdy, often-annoying, wisecracking Jewish best friend Nevin Steinberg. Things take a turn for the worse when someone accidentally sets a pig loose in his mom’s restaurant, and the incident makes the local news. Then, Nevin talks Rawly into performing as a duo at the school talent show, where he makes a fool of himself in front of his crush, Miyoko. Everything changes when Rawly misses his bus stop and ends up rescuing 22-year-old model Nikki Demetrius when her car plunges into a river. Instantly, Rawly is on the local and national news, hailed as a hero for saving Nikki’s life. The third-person narration follows Rawley’s journey as he learns who his real friends are and the difference between comic-book and real-world heroes.
A good story with some unexpected twists . (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55885-711-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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Though the footnotes feel gimmicky and distracting, readers will likely be able to look past them (or just skip over them)...
Cleverly woven through the titular encyclopedia—with entries as seemingly mundane as “Apple” and “Oxen”—is the touchingly real and often humorous story of a preteen’s struggles with family, friendship and first love.
Isadora “Tink” Aaron-Martin, nearly 13, means to make the most of her recent grounding by using her time on house arrest to write an encyclopedia, heavily annotated with footnotes. Frustrated by her reputation as the peacemaker, Tink’s entries about life with an autistic brother are fresh and painfully honest. Rivers doesn’t tiptoe around the destructive impact the syndrome can have on a family. Rather, through Tink, she explores what it’s like to grow up in a house where everyone is constantly walking on eggshells, waiting for the next violent outburst. But family isn’t the only place where Tink feels invisible. She also walks in the shadow of her “best friend,” Freddie Blue Anderson, who seems to care more about being “pops” (popular) than about Tink. It isn’t until a blue-haired skateboarder named Kai moves in next door that she gradually finds the strength to put herself first, both at home and at school.
Though the footnotes feel gimmicky and distracting, readers will likely be able to look past them (or just skip over them) and cheer for Tink as she comes into her own. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-31028-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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