An energetically written but ultimately unpersuasive bit of ’90s nostalgia.
A teenager goes looking for her rogue rock-star mother in Goldberg’s third YA novel in a series.
It’s 2014 in Eugene, Oregon, and Love Marvin is the daughter of grunge-music royalty. Her parents, Nico Sullivan and Evan Marvin, were the creative force behind the 1990s band Evanico. Nico hasn’t been a reliable presence in her daughter’s life since Love was a baby. Now Love is 16 and a grunge fanatic like her two best friends, Frankie and Caden. “I live like the cave people did,” Love brags, referring to her use of a Sports Walkman and flip phone, adding, “Frankie and Caden feel the same and we’ve dubbed our crew 9021-Hole, after two of our fav 90’s cultural touchstones.” Shortly after learning that Nico has gone missing—well, more missing than usual—Love discovers Nico’s old diary in the attic. The girl becomes convinced that it’s the key to finding her mom, and she convinces Evan to let her, Frankie, and Caden take a road trip down the coast to visit Nico’s parents in Los Angeles. Along the way, with the words of her mother in her brain and ’90s music in her ears, Love starts to unravel how she and Nico are similar and different. Goldberg is an undeniably skilled writer, and his prose vibrates with his characters’ vitality: “a woman with a sea of frizzy orange hair the color of Sunkist opens the door with a funky-looking cigarette stamped between her lips and a floating caftan hanging off her thin body.” However, both Nico and Love come off as grating, and neither of their portrayals is terribly convincing. For instance, would Nico really have described her own dresses as “Lilith Fair-esque” in 1998, just a few months after the first Lilith Fair festival? The book may appeal to the many present-day teens who own Nirvana T-shirts, but there’s a flimsiness to the narrative that prevents sincere emotions from taking root.
An energetically written but ultimately unpersuasive bit of ’90s nostalgia.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-953944-21-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Wise Wolf Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
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