by Louise Plummer ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2000
From Plummer (The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman, 1995, etc.), an unusually complex tale of teenage pregnancy, in which the prospects for a happy ending are tempered by the difficulty of the available choices. Hannah Ziebarth, 15 and pregnant, lives in Salt Lake City, where her Mormon bishop was her deceased father’s best friend. The bishop looks after the family, but remotely, and doesn’t see that Hannah’s gentle mother hasn’t left the house since her husband died, hasn’t made a phone call, hasn’t even made a sandwich. Hannah, beset with her loss and her mother’s withdrawal, as well as overwhelmed by the myriad household tasks that have come with that withdrawal, falls for the smooth moves of Milo, who is rich, handsome, and popular. When she tells him she’s pregnant he hits her; never really stable, Hannah spirals out of control and wakes up in a hospital for troubled teens. Hannah’s perspective as she makes her voyage through therapy—and through pregnancy—alternates with commentary from her best friend, Trilby, and Milo’s put-upon younger brother, Roman, who is especially amusing in his take on his parents’ hero-worship of their oldest son. While the plot is wrapped up a bit too neatly, Hannah is a rich and rewarding presence; her aching losses nearly throb on the page. Plummer is not afraid to say that it is possible to overcome life’s demons, but it’s hard; that people can change, but not all do; that giving up a baby hurts. Sobering and definitely a page-turner. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32511-8
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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by Laurence Yep ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1999
Revisiting characters from The Cook’s Family (1998), Yep again explores personal and cultural conflicts arising between the generations in a Chinese-American family. Suddenly saddled with caring for four younger siblings after a wealthy businessman hires her widowed mother as a governess—or amah—for his daughter, Stephanie, Amy Chin is forced to miss several ballet rehearsals for Cinderella, to listen to glowing accounts of Stephanie’s sophistication, and to accept expensive clothing and other gifts from her. While gaining new insight into how Cinderella’s stepsisters must have felt, Amy’s understandable resentment is compounded by the news that Stephanie will be moving in while her father is away on a trip. Yep builds that feeling to fever pitch, then dispels it by casting Stephanie as a lonely child hurt by one parent’s death and the other’s neglect; becoming friends, Stephanie and Amy clear the air and mend some fences with their well-meaning parents in a climactic face-off. The characters, most of them familiar from previous appearances, are distinct if not particularly complex, the San Francisco setting is vividly drawn, and the issues are laid out in plain terms and tidily resolved. It’s formulaic, but not entirely superficial. (Fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23040-8
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
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by Laurence Yep & Joanne Ryder ; illustrated by Mary GrandPré
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by Melina Marchetta ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1999
In this Australian import, Marchetta gets the voice of teenage angst just right in a hormone saturated coming-of-age story. Josephine Alibrandi, 17 and of Italian descent, is torn between her traditional upbringing, embodied by both her immigrant grandmother and her overprotective mother, and the norms of teenage society. A scholarship student at an esteemed Catholic girls’ school, she struggles with feelings of inferiority not only because she’s poorer than the other students and an “ethnic,” but because her mother never married. These feelings are intensified when her father, whom she’s just met, enters and gradually becomes part of her life. As Josephine struggles to weave the disparate strands of her character into a cohesive tapestry of self, she discovers some unsavory family secrets, falls in love for the first time, copes with a friend’s suicide, and goes from being a follower to a leader. Although somewhat repetitive and overlong, this is a tender, convincing portrayal of a girl’s bumpy ride through late adolescence. Some of the Australian expressions may be unfamiliar to US readers, but the emotions translate perfectly. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30142-7
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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