The characters’ unhappiness and hopes will resonate with many readers.
Three middle school girls, loosely connected by their various roles in a school bullying incident, narrate the stories of their lives.
Krista stops attending school and develops a dangerous addiction to diet pills after mean-girl Chelsea posts unflattering photos of Krista around their school. Frustrated by the school’s lack of visible advocacy for Krista, her sole friend, Tessa, creates a series of posters that highlight Krista’s talents—and her absence. Tessa’s campaign successfully engages the school community, providing Krista with much-needed support. Interspersed with the scenes related to bullying are explorations of each girl’s life outside of school: Krista and her father’s reliance on fast food while her mother works, Tessa’s grief over her father’s death during military service in Afghanistan, and Chelsea’s involvement with an abusive drug dealer in an attempt to fill the emotional void created by her selfish mother. Unfortunately, these girls sometimes feel like stock characters, but they do so only because they so accurately represent the reality of many teens’ lives. Middle school readers, in particular, will connect with multiple moments in the story, which ultimately offers some hope that Krista will recover with support from friends and health professionals. Chelsea’s fate is much darker and includes a frightening scene suggesting she is being sexually exploited by the drug dealer.
The characters’ unhappiness and hopes will resonate with many readers. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4594-0509-7
Page Count: 162
Publisher: James Lorimer
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Tori’s never given much thought to boyfriends or climbing the popularity ladder until she spends the summer apart from her nouveau riche BFF, Sienna. Sienna has come back from vacation with hair extensions, sophistication and a long-distance boyfriend named Antonio. Tori enjoys the popularity she’s acquired as a result of Sienna’s friendship, but she also feels a little competitive, so she makes up a fake boyfriend named Sebastian. Even as Tori realizes that Sienna’s boyfriend is also fake, she gets tangled in her own web of lies. Though she worries about losing her new friends as well as Sienna, Tori knows she has to come clean about Sebastian. Tori’s honesty and sense of humor make for an exuberant read. The dialogue is realistic, and Springer brings refreshing personalities to standard character types; Tori’s parents are divorced, but both parents are active in her life, for instance, and the popular girls aren’t mean. A subplot about a teacher’s drinking feels extraneous, but it doesn’t distract from this sweet story about truth and friendship. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-374-39910-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
Despite some unfamiliar language, this bubbly piece of middle-grade Irish chick-lit will have no trouble crossing the pond. The lightly humorous and good-spirited tale—even the villains are only mildly mean—centers on a 13-year-old girl named Amy who is beset with a million persnickety problems and one awesome asset. Her problems include two complex stepfamilies, the desertion of her best friend to a higher-status crowd and her awakening feelings for an outsider boy. Her asset is Clover, her 17-year-old can-do aunt with a mission, which includes helping Amy with all of her difficulties even if it means creating some new ones. That mission derives from Clover's job as an "agony aunt" at a teen magazine, and with Amy firmly in tow, she goes out into the real world and attempts to solve her readers' problems, which frequently involves revenge. The story starts off slow and initially feels familiar, but as the characters and situations develop, it builds momentum, interest and fizz. Good fun. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5006-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
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