Blandly engaging.
A text-messaging accident leads to romance.
Keeley’s twin, Zach, has always stood out, with lots of friends and football-star status. Keeley’s best friend, Nicky, is busy with a summer school class at a community college, leaving the white teen feeling somewhat left out. A phone mix-up and an initial texting spree connect Keeley and Talon, a boy she’s never met. The first-person narrative shows Keeley to be combatively flirty, while Talon’s macho bravado is clearly a smoke screen. The phone interactions, represented by iconic text-message bubbles, are critical to the plot, integrated into a story that feels otherwise somewhat outdated. There’s little angst, naughty behavior including alcohol is offstage for the most part, and Keeley’s and Zach’s parents are conveniently clueless though lovingly interested in their offspring. All of the teens are seniors looking toward college and with serious plans for the future, making them feel rather vanilla, an impression that is reinforced by an apparent absence of diversity in race, ethnicity, and class. The one exception is Talon’s mother, Darlene, who makes a cameo as an outrageously costumed, blonde cowgirl with a Texas accent. The connection between the twins helps to provide some emotional weight, as does a social media scandal that causes trouble between Talon and Keeley.
Blandly engaging. (Romance. 12-16)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77138-735-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: KCP Loft/Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
A pleasant romance hindered by some curious choices.
Opposites attract after tragedy strikes.
Autistic white teen David Drucker spends every lunch period eating alone. When Indian-American popular girl Kit Lowell joins him one day she’s just looking for a quiet place to sit. It’s been one month since Kit’s father, a white dentist, died in a terrible car accident, but Kit is still flailing. As the two teens get to know one another and eat lunch together each day, they find themselves bringing out their own best qualities. Slowly but surely, romance blooms. There’s a warmth and ease to their relationship that the author captures effortlessly. Each chapter alternates perspective between Kit and David, and each one is fully rendered. The supporting characters are less well served, particularly Kit’s first-generation-immigrant mother. There are two major complications in Kit’s story, both involving her workaholic mother, and the lack of development defuses some potential fireworks. The central relationship is so charming and engaging that readers will tolerate the adequate tertiary characters. Less tolerable is a late-in-the-game reveal about Dr. Lowell’s accident that shifts the novel’s tone to a down note that juxtaposes poorly with everything that came before. The author pulls out in the final few pages, but it still leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
A pleasant romance hindered by some curious choices. (Romance. 12-16)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-53568-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
An enjoyable, if predictable, romantic holiday story.
Is an exuberant extended family the cure for a breakup? Sophie is about to find out.
When Sophie unexpectedly breaks up with her boyfriend, she isn’t thrilled about spending the holidays at her grandparents’ house instead of with him. And when her grandmother forms a plan to distract Sophie from her broken heart—10 blind dates, each set up by different family members—she’s even less thrilled. Everyone gets involved with the matchmaking, even forming a betting pool on the success of each date. But will Sophie really find someone to fill the space left by her ex? Will her ex get wind of Sophie’s dating spree via social media and want them to get back together? Is that what she even wants anymore? This is a fun story of finding love, getting to know yourself, and getting to know your family. The pace is quick and light, though the characters are fairly shallow and occasionally feel interchangeable, especially with so many names involved. A Christmas tale, the plot is a fast-paced series of dinners, parties, and games, relayed in both narrative form and via texts, though the humor occasionally feels stiff and overwrought. The ending is satisfying, though largely unsurprising. Most characters default to white as members of Sophie’s Italian American extended family, although one of her cousins has a Filipina mother. One uncle is gay.
An enjoyable, if predictable, romantic holiday story. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-02749-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
