Well-meaning but problematic. (Fiction. 12-14)
Alternating chapters tell the story of two teens who meet through their high school’s Best Buddies program, which pairs cognitively normative students with those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Madeline, a 14-year-old freshman, still copes with the effects of a traumatic brain injury she suffered falling off her bike six years before. Her Best Buddy, Justin, a senior, is dealing with his mother’s severe depression following the death of his autistic younger sister from anorexia. Madeline persuades Justin to accompany her to the ranch where she works with miniature therapy horses; Justin gets his mother to come along. Meanwhile Becky, Maddie’s twin, has started sneaking out with new goth friends. That’s a lot of melodrama for a brief novel, but what’s worse is the subtle thread of ableism running through the book. In the sections narrated by Maddie, her literary voice sounds neurotypical, but her spoken voice and actions are slow and incoherent. “We get called a lot of names,” she tells readers, “losers, dummies, brain-deads.” Meanwhile, Justin’s mother refuses therapy and medication (it makes her “dopey”), but she substantially recovers when Justin takes her to the horses—dangerously stereotyping antidepressants and making Justin the savior. The IDD members of the Best Buddies club are all identified by their disabilities alone, while the normative members run the show.
Well-meaning but problematic. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-988347-03-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clockwise Press
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre.
Survival camp? How can you not have bad feelings about that?
Sixteen-year-old nerd (or geek, but not dork) Henry Lambert has no desire to go to Strongwoods Survival Camp. His father thinks it might help Henry man up and free him of some of his odd phobias. Randy, Henry’s best friend since kindergarten, is excited at the prospect of going thanks to the camp’s promotional YouTube video, so Henry relents. When they arrive at the shabby camp in the middle of nowhere and meet the possibly insane counselor (and only staff member), Max, Henry’s bad feelings multiply. Max tries to train his five campers with a combination of carrot and stick, but the boys are not athletes, let alone survivalists. When a trio of gangsters drops in on the camp Games to try to collect the debt owed by the owner, the boys suddenly have to put their skills to the test. Too bad they don’t have any—at all. Strand’s summer-camp farce is peopled with sarcastic losers who’re chatty and wry. It’s often funny, and the gags turn in unexpected directions and would do Saturday Night Live skits proud. However, the story’s flow is hampered by an unnecessary and completely unfunny frame that takes place during the premier of the movie the boys make of their experience. The repeated intrusions bring the narrative to a screeching halt.
Without that frame, this would have been a fine addition to the wacked-out summer-camp subgenre. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8455-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In an unnamed country (a thinly veiled Philippines), three teenage boys pick trash for a meager living. A bag of cash in the trash might be—well, not their ticket out of poverty but at least a minor windfall. With 1,100 pesos, maybe they can eat chicken occasionally, instead of just rice. Gardo and Raphael are determined not to give any of it to the police who've been sniffing around, so they enlist their friend Rat. In alternating and tightly paced points of view, supplemented by occasional other voices, the boys relate the intrigue in which they're quickly enmeshed. A murdered houseboy, an orphaned girl, a treasure map, a secret code, corrupt politicians and 10,000,000 missing dollars: It all adds up to a cracker of a thriller. Sadly, the setting relies on Third World poverty tourism for its flavor, as if this otherwise enjoyable caper were being told by Olivia, the story's British charity worker who muses with vacuous sentimentality on the children that "break your heart" and "change your life." Nevertheless, a zippy and classic briefcase-full-of-money thrill ride. (Thriller. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-75214-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
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