Readers who stay with Julia have a mighty twist at the end to look forward to.
Julia Jaynes has always known she’s special, just as she’s always known she has to hide her special talents and abilities; she’s a member of a select community of just a handful of families: human in many respects while so much more in others, they live among ordinary people but hold themselves apart.
Her father has made it very clear that to be accepted into their clan, she must maintain a low profile, keep her abilities under wraps, and never, under any circumstances, mingle with an outsider but stay only with her own handful of beautiful young peers. Her own glossy, well-groomed white family, Julia notes, looks “like they’d externalized being members of the One Percent.” She wants to do as he asks, to be included in the tribe when they relocate to their next place, but she knows that she’s different. And when a chance meeting with a handsome, young outsider with tan skin and “almond-shaped eyes” shows her a new and very possibly unique ability, she’s faced with a choice: to blend in and be accepted or to live a very singular life out on her own. Weisenberg frames teen issues in an eerie, unusual environment where nothing is quite as simple as it seems. Julia narrates, slowly revealing the rules of her peculiar community in a first-person narration that relies on concept rather than style to turn the pages.
Readers who stay with Julia have a mighty twist at the end to look forward to. (Paranormal thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58089-806-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Charlesbridge Teen
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
A unique if unevenly executed take on the zombie genre.
A 17-year-old girl loves to cook—but she might just make you eat the rich, literally.
Brielle Petitfour dreams of becoming a renowned chef, serving up food from her Haitian culture to Miami’s upper crust via her elite supper club. But she’s also a zombie—or a zonbi, as they’re known in Creole. Brielle’s immigrant mother suffers chronic pain from an injury sustained while working for the white Banks family, the same people whose company makes the medicine she needs to keep her pain at bay. But now Mummy’s insurance is refusing to cover it. Then Brielle is offered a summer fellowship—with generous family health insurance benefits—by the outrageously wealthy and greedy Bankses, who make this proposal in order to smooth over a situation involving Brielle that’s a potential “PR nightmare.” Brielle accepts: She can help her mother and, with her zombie gifts, maybe even get revenge. Creole phrases and Haitian folklore are woven into the story, adding to the atmosphere. Brielle’s five sisters back in Haiti serve as a sort of Greek chorus, and their interspersed chapters fill in the rich backstory. The authors have a lot of important things to say about generational wealth, racism, capitalism, and class, but the rules of Brielle’s monstrous zombie powers remain unclear, and the many themes that are explored limit the deeper development of Brielle as a character.
A unique if unevenly executed take on the zombie genre. (authors’ note) (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780374390532
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deft, delightful, and emotionally complex examination of intergenerational relationships.
Goo takes readers on a journey examining the impacts of Korean American heritage and parental expectations on mother-daughter relationships.
Sixteen-year-old Samantha Kang doesn’t understand her perfectly poised mother’s desire to conform to wealthy White American society. Likewise, Priscilla Kang doesn’t understand her daughter’s choice of boyfriend or lack of ambition. When Halmoni, Sam’s beloved maternal grandmother, falls ill, intense feelings bubble up, leading to family turmoil. Sam downloads Throwback Rides, a magical ride-share app that drops her off in 1995, where she must help teenage Priscilla’s all-American dream come true if she hopes to return to the present before her phone battery dies. Goo’s masterful storytelling examines the complex nature of familial relationships: As Sam observes the daily microaggressions Asian students face at school and the tense relationship between Priscilla and Halmoni, each still dealing with residual grief following Priscilla’s father’s death, she begins to empathize and understand the person her mother becomes. The strength of this realization lies not in excusing her mother’s behavior but compassionately understanding the ongoing fallout of trauma. Sam navigates the delicate balance between the ways parents’ dreams for their children can be at odds with what children wish for themselves. The story maintains lightness as Sam attempts to make her mom homecoming queen, falls for a football player in the ’90s, and tries her best to fit into an era at odds with her progressive 21st-century values.
A deft, delightful, and emotionally complex examination of intergenerational relationships. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63893-020-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Zando Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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