In the style of so many new narratives in verse, Wild uses individual poems to tell the poignant, intense story of a girl unlucky in love. She allows each character their individual voices but focuses the tale on Jen, as the girl reels from the teenage suicide of her first boyfriend. Jen, who insists on being called “Jinx” after two boyfriends die, begins the story in full resistance against her mother. She falls in love with a wild, creative boy whom no one realizes is in a severe depression. When he hangs himself, Jen spirals downward into drinking, finally meeting a boy who falls victim to a freak accident. Blaming another boy for the tragedy, Jen terrorizes him and his family until she feels remorse for her attacks and then falls in love with him. Finally happy, Jen begins to appreciate not only her own mother, but her estranged father and stepmother, whom she had hated. Wild concentrates not just on Jen’s story, however. By interweaving the thoughts of every character in the story, she creates a fully developed community of Jen’s friends and family. Young readers will see how all of these people contribute to her growth. Jinx emerges as a subtly wrought, deeply affecting story dealing with friendship and familial and romantic love. The device of the poetry will attract many young readers; the skill with which it is told will keep them hooked. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8027-8830-0
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
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A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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PROFILES
A suspenseful tale filled with Ojibwe knowledge, hockey, and the politics of status.
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Testing the strength of family bonds is never easy—and lies make it even harder.
Daunis is trying to balance her two communities: The Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, teen is constantly adapting, whether she is with her Anishinaabe father’s side of the family, the Firekeepers, or the Fontaines, her White mother’s wealthy relatives. She has grand plans for her future, as she wants to become a doctor, but has decided to defer her plans to go away for college because her maternal grandmother is recovering from a stroke. Daunis spends her free time playing hockey with her Firekeeper half brother, Levi, but tragedy strikes, and she discovers someone is selling a dangerous new form of meth—and the bodies are piling up. While trying to figure out who is behind this, Daunis pulls away from her family, covering up where she has been and what she has been doing. While dealing with tough topics like rape, drugs, racism, and death, this book balances the darkness with Ojibwe cultural texture and well-crafted characters. Daunis is a three-dimensional, realistically imperfect girl trying her best to handle everything happening around her. The first-person narration reveals her internal monologue, allowing readers to learn what’s going on in her head as she encounters anti-Indian bias and deals with grief.
A suspenseful tale filled with Ojibwe knowledge, hockey, and the politics of status. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-76656-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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