A teen love story that flits through a titillating social scene and wanders into a murky moral swamp.
A love triangle takes a turn for the dark.
There never seems to be a good time for Sasha to tell her best friend, Xavier, that she is desperately in love with him—not while he’s depressed after Ivy dumps him, not when Ivy decides she wants him back, not even when Sasha comes up with a beastly plan to entrap Ivy into revealing her selfish and cheating ways. Ivy is “a tornado, unpredictable and cracklingly alive.” Sasha tells herself that she has Xavier’s best intentions at heart when she uploads a picture of a hot guy with a “muscular bicep” and sends Ivy an Instagram follow request. Ivy takes the bait and starts a text flirtation, but she continues to lure Xavier deeper into a naughty relationship. “Come to my house,” she tells him. “I promise we won’t get caught.” Sasha goes to extreme lengths to free Xavier from Ivy, and these pretty girls create some very ugly situations. Weingarten draws provocative characters with searingly sharp writing, but underneath the stylishness, the plot twists are abrupt and may leave readers with vertigo. The absence of specific racial or ethnic markers implies a white default.
A teen love story that flits through a titillating social scene and wanders into a murky moral swamp. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1860-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A visceral, weighty read.
An unflinching portrayal of the complexities of one teenager’s journey through alcoholism and recovery.
Bella took her first drink when she was 11. Now she’s 15, and she and her friends have perfected the art of asking strangers outside liquor stores to buy them booze. It’s the best way to cope with her parents’ fighting, the grief and trauma of watching her beloved grandmother die, acting as a caregiver to her younger sister, and getting dumped by her first boyfriend, who said she was “too much.” A party a few weeks ago led to the drunken mess of a night known as Bella’s Extremely Unfortunate Public Downfall, after which her mom ruled: “no drinking, no parties.” But Bella’s parents are divorced, and when she’s staying with her permissive and inattentive dad, who’ll stop her? After Bella blacks out at a Thanksgiving party and her friends drop her on her mom’s stoop, she ends up hospitalized with alcohol poisoning and a broken face. Her mom sends her to an outdoorsy rehab center with a program focused on building self-awareness and self-reliance. Bella’s experiences with the program and her fellow residents are depicted with realistic nuance; nothing comes easily, and Glasgow carefully addresses relapses, anxiety disorder, self-harm, and death. After Bella’s treatment ends, she discovers that returning to her life may be the most significant challenge of all. Most characters are cued white.
A visceral, weighty read. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780525708087
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
Guaranteed to fly off the shelves.
Cliques writ large take over in the first of a projected dystopian trilogy.
The remnant population of post-apocalyptic Chicago intended to cure civilization’s failures by structuring society into five “factions,” each dedicated to inculcating a specific virtue. When Tris, secretly a forbidden “Divergent,” has to choose her official faction in her 16th year, she rejects her selfless Abnegation upbringing for the Dauntless, admiring their reckless bravery. But the vicious initiation process reveals that her new tribe has fallen from its original ideals, and that same rot seems to be spreading… Aside from the preposterous premise, this gritty, paranoid world is built with careful details and intriguing scope. The plot clips along at an addictive pace, with steady jolts of brutal violence and swoony romance. Despite the constant assurance that Tris is courageous, clever and kind, her own first-person narration displays a blank personality. No matter; all the “good” characters adore her and the “bad” are spiteful and jealous. Fans snared by the ratcheting suspense will be unable to resist speculating on their own factional allegiance; a few may go on to ponder the questions of loyalty and identity beneath the façade of thrilling adventure.
Guaranteed to fly off the shelves. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202402-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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