An adequate portrait of an art-obsessed teen, but, unlike Vanessa, it doesn't stand out.
A self-proclaimed artist learns lessons about friendship, thoughtfulness and the importance of having something to say.
Restless, exuberant and brightly colored in pink hair and rainbow eye shadow, Vanessa knows she's not like the other “zombie kids” at her Seattle high school. Living with her Grampie and her dockworker mother, who settled down after becoming pregnant with her as a teenager, Vanessa longs for freedom and adulthood and assumes those around her do too (she constantly insists her mother should go on more dates, for instance). Readers instantly see the hurt she causes, despite her justifications, when Vanessa crosses boundaries to give the people in her life what she thinks they want—outing her gay best friend or spilling the beans to her shy musician friend Holly's crush. Her desire for new, transformative experiences is clear as she falls in with an older artist crowd and makes dubious, impulsive choices involving an older boy, a fake ID and a pinup calendar. The device of an art teacher helping her realize deeper truths about herself and her art feels familiar, and the insinuation that dyeing one's hair pink is merely a ploy for attention seems more like an adult's assumption than a teen's experience.
An adequate portrait of an art-obsessed teen, but, unlike Vanessa, it doesn't stand out. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-375-84154-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Wendy Lamb/Random
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel.
A Holocaust tale with a thin “Hansel and Gretel” veneer from the author of The Devil’s Arithmetic (1988).
Chaim and Gittel, 14-year-old twins, live with their parents in the Lodz ghetto, forced from their comfortable country home by the Nazis. The siblings are close, sharing a sign-based twin language; Chaim stutters and communicates primarily with his sister. Though slowly starving, they make the best of things with their beloved parents, although it’s more difficult once they must share their tiny flat with an unpleasant interfaith couple and their Mischling (half-Jewish) children. When the family hears of their impending “wedding invitation”—the ghetto idiom for a forthcoming order for transport—they plan a dangerous escape. Their journey is difficult, and one by one, the adults vanish. Ultimately the children end up in a fictional child labor camp, making ammunition for the German war effort. Their story effectively evokes the dehumanizing nature of unremitting silence. Nevertheless, the dense, distancing narrative (told in a third-person contemporaneous narration focused through Chaim with interspersed snippets from Gittel’s several-decades-later perspective) has several consistency problems, mostly regarding the relative religiosity of this nominally secular family. One theme seems to be frustration with those who didn’t fight back against overwhelming odds, which makes for a confusing judgment on the suffering child protagonists.
Stands out neither as a folk-tale retelling, a coming-of-age story, nor a Holocaust novel. (author’s note) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-25778-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
In Nina's world, children have GPS trackers until they turn 18, and surveillance satellites monitor for subversive talk. Tight control stands between young women and a threatening sexuality; at 16, teenage girls get tattooed with their age and become fair game. Fifteen-year-old Nina, unlike her friends, dreads becoming “sex-teen.” Her life is too confusing without extra complications: Her mother's just died, and Nina's half sister Dee might be legally claimed by her father to be a servant—or worse. How does the cute boy who might be a member of the resistance fit into Nina's life? And had Nina's mother been part of the resistance herself? Nina doesn't want to get involved, but she needs to protect Dee. A large suspension of disbelief is required for the dysfunctional gender politics. (How did the situation get so broken? How do teenage boys and girls manage to be friends when they're only weeks or months away from effectively legal rape?) Otherwise, a fun little thriller for the abstinence romantics. (Science fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-14-241771-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Speak/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
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