Four privileged Long Island teens befriend their favorite YA author with disastrous results.
Soon after their first encounter at a book signing, the bewitching and charismatic Fatima Ro—23-year-old author of Undertow—takes four of her teenage worshippers under her wing. Snobbish Miri Tan is the self-proclaimed leader of their school’s Undertow Society, giddy fangirl Soleil Johnston carefully documents every one of her interactions with Ro, ditzy Penny Panzarella kindly helps out around the author’s house after being given a key, and socially isolated Jonah Nicholls harbors an emotional attachment to Ro’s story. But when she very obviously writes them into her next novel, The Absolution of Brady Stevenson, the teens’ rose-tinted glasses are shattered, painful truths are uncovered—and, most shocking of all, Jonah is attacked and ends up in a coma. The story is related via a mixture of formats, including video interview transcripts, magazine articles, and passages from Ro’s second novel, with each providing insight into the characters’ individual relationships with the author. The weight of grief, authentic human connections, and whether life offers do-overs are all explored here. A lack of physical descriptions requires readers to speculate about characters’ ethnicities based on the diversity of their names.
Utterly addictive and psychologically delectable—Peñaflor’s (Unscripted Joss Byrd, 2016) second novel will shock at every twist and turn. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267365-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION
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Engrossing, contemplative, and as heart-wrenching as the title promises.
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What would you do with one day left to live?
In an alternate present, a company named Death-Cast calls Deckers—people who will die within the coming day—to inform them of their impending deaths, though not how they will happen. The End Day call comes for two teenagers living in New York City: Puerto Rican Mateo and bisexual Cuban-American foster kid Rufus. Rufus needs company after a violent act puts cops on his tail and lands his friends in jail; Mateo wants someone to push him past his comfort zone after a lifetime of playing it safe. The two meet through Last Friend, an app that connects lonely Deckers (one of many ways in which Death-Cast influences social media). Mateo and Rufus set out to seize the day together in their final hours, during which their deepening friendship blossoms into something more. Present-tense chapters, short and time-stamped, primarily feature the protagonists’ distinctive first-person narrations. Fleeting third-person chapters give windows into the lives of other characters they encounter, underscoring how even a tiny action can change the course of someone else’s life. It’s another standout from Silvera (History Is All You Left Me, 2017, etc.), who here grapples gracefully with heavy questions about death and the meaning of a life well-lived.
Engrossing, contemplative, and as heart-wrenching as the title promises. (Speculative fiction. 13-adult).Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-245779-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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Black is back with another dark tale of Faerie, this one set in Faerie and launching a new trilogy.
Jude—broken, rebuilt, fueled by anger and a sense of powerlessness—has never recovered from watching her adoptive Faerie father murder her parents. Human Jude (whose brown hair curls and whose skin color is never described) both hates and loves Madoc, whose murderous nature is true to his Faerie self and who in his way loves her. Brought up among the Gentry, Jude has never felt at ease, but after a decade, Faerie has become her home despite the constant peril. Black’s latest looks at nature and nurture and spins a tale of court intrigue, bloodshed, and a truly messed-up relationship that might be the saving of Jude and the titular prince, who, like Jude, has been shaped by the cruelties of others. Fierce and observant Jude is utterly unaware of the currents that swirl around her. She fights, plots, even murders enemies, but she must also navigate her relationship with her complex family (human, Faerie, and mixed). This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life.
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-31027-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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