Refreshingly thoughtful character development in a familiar package.
As her controlled world begins fraying apart, the brother that Rain has taken care of most of her life becomes the support she needs most.
White, Jewish, 16-year-old Rain Rosenblatt made rules for herself a long time ago. Some of them have to do with her autistic twin brother Ethan’s needs, for which she is almost solely responsible, and some of them have to do with herself, her dreams, and the tight lid she keeps on them. Rain knows the important role she plays—reliable anchor for her divorced mother and her brother—a role that doesn’t leave room for the unpredictable. So she is not quite prepared when her school crush is requited and a new romance starts, when her usually isolated brother begins a relationship with her best friend, and especially when one night and one mistake throw life into chaos. The first-person narration punctuated by Rain’s cooking-blog posts and Ethan’s journal entries pulses with emotion as Rain tries to adjust to the changes in her life, and it crescendos to a frenetic cadence when her life itself is in danger. While Scheier’s narrative features but doesn’t center neurodivergence and is shot through with the barbs of stigma, breaking little new ground, Rain’s realization that she has always needed her brother as much as he’s needed her prioritizes Ethan’s validation alongside Rain’s growth.
Refreshingly thoughtful character development in a familiar package. (recipes) (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-5426-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Savell offers readers hope within grim realism, though the flights of lyricism can detract from it
A friendless 17-year-old hard case meets a softhearted young man and his dying grandmother, and it may change her path.
Michelle despises her single mother, dislikes her school therapist, hates her classmates and loathes her convenience-store job. She’s unused to caring about the opinions of anyone until Nathaniel—a towering young man, as sweet as he is huge—comes to work at the store. Somehow Michelle finds herself wanting to live up to Nathaniel’s expectations. In an unreliable first-person narration that sacrifices clarity for metaphor (“Straight as a pine tree and just as scented, she gives me the stalker stare, eerie smile pulled like wet gum across her narrow cheeks”), Michelle fights with everyone but Nathaniel and his hospitalized grandmother. The grandmother sends Michelle on a literary scavenger hunt, which might have been fascinating if it were experienced rather than described peripherally. Meanwhile, Nathaniel convinces Michelle to adopt a subdued nonresponse in the face of her high school bullies. As Michelle mellows, it becomes increasingly clear that her life actually is tragic, and her sulky teen misanthropy is a reasonable reaction to a rotten life—a refreshing take.
Savell offers readers hope within grim realism, though the flights of lyricism can detract from it . (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-60542-690-7
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Medallion Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
An uneven read that ultimately misses its mark.
Even as her own soul hovers in the “middle” space, her body barely clinging to life in a hospital room, 18-year-old Crow’s thoughts are consumed with protecting her sister.
When given the chance to go on a “walkabout”—an opportunity to revisit her life and make things right—Crow learns that there may have been another side to the people and events that defined her. The only catch is that she must return as someone other than herself. It’s an interesting-enough premise, and the first half of the book will likely live up to readers’ expectations. A skillfully crafted and strikingly bleak Minnesota is the perfect backdrop for Crow’s desperate attempts to save her sister from their stepfather’s lascivious eye. Their mother’s unwillingness to acknowledge this potential threat is both maddening and chillingly believable. Unfortunately, the second half of the novel falls disappointingly short. Here, Crow’s gender-bending return to her past as a young man muddies the waters and distracts from the plot, as does a disturbing side story about Crow’s relationship with her friend Basil. Frequent references to Crow’s passion for philosophy are not followed through in the text, and Crow’s obsession with protecting her sister never allows adequate room for Crow to truly discover herself.
An uneven read that ultimately misses its mark. (Fantasy. 14-17)Pub Date: April 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-14-241229-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
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