Much like building a bridge stone by stone, this read requires painstaking effort and patience.
Years after the death of their mother, the fourth son in an Australian family of five boys reconnects with his estranged father.
Matthew Dunbar dug up the old TW, the typewriter his father buried (along with a dog and a snake) in the backyard of his childhood home. He searched for it in order to tell the story of the family’s past, a story about his mother, who escaped from Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall; about his father, who abandoned them all after their mother’s death; about his brother Clay, who built a bridge to reunite their family; and about a mule named Achilles. Zusak (The Book Thief, 2006, etc.) weaves a complex narrative winding through flashbacks. His prose is thick with metaphor and heavy with allusions to Homer’s epics. The story romanticizes Matthew and his brothers’ often violent and sometimes homophobic expressions of their cisgender, heterosexual masculinity with reflections unsettlingly reminiscent of a “boys will be boys” attitude. Women in the book primarily play the roles of love interests, mothers, or (in the case of their neighbor) someone to marvel at the Dunbar boys and give them jars to open. The characters are all presumably white.
Much like building a bridge stone by stone, this read requires painstaking effort and patience. (Fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984830-15-9
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
A disturbing, suspenseful coming-of-age story about power, corruption, and the choices we make both for ourselves and the...
The last thing Claudia McCarthy wanted was power—that is, until she had some.
After years of being teased for her limp and her speech impediment, Claudia enters her new high school, Imperial Day Academy, with only one goal in mind: to be as invisible as possible. That is, until her mortal enemy, the powerful Honor Council member Livia Drusus, orders her to run for Student Senate, thereby thrusting Claudia into the spotlight. Against all odds, Claudia wins her election and, after uncovering a financial scandal within the current Senate, becomes vice president. As Claudia becomes more and more powerful, she begins to question the motivations of everyone around her—including her own. This retelling of the novel I, Claudius (1934) is a gripping political thriller told through a complex narrator whose facility for coldhearted political calculation is exceeded only by her capacity for self-doubt. Claudia is white, and the story features a diverse set of characters who are neither immune to the impact of nor entirely defined by their race, queerness, or physical ability. This narratorial approach is particularly refreshing when it comes to Claudia: Most notably, unlike the majority of disabled characters in young adult fiction, Claudia falls in (reciprocated) love with a popular, nondisabled student.
A disturbing, suspenseful coming-of-age story about power, corruption, and the choices we make both for ourselves and the ones we love. (Thriller. 16-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5124-4846-7
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
PROFILES
Despite the racy subject matter, this is a slow-moving story with a disappointing lack of resolution.
In the mid-1990s, 17-year-old aspiring print journalist Patrick Sheridan from rural Texas is selected to be a student anchor on a news show broadcast into high schools nationwide in this reissue of a 1998 title.
Patrick's extremely strict adoptive Catholic parents (who have banished their older, biological daughter from their lives) reluctantly allow him to move to Los Angeles alone. When Patrick leaves Texas he is still a polite, God-fearing, and sincere young man—but he soon falls down the slippery slope of fame with sex, drugs, and alcohol. Realizing that the show is more about entertainment than journalism, Patrick becomes depressed and stops caring about life. While on assignment in Belfast, he runs away to his Grampa’s hometown of Kilbeg in the Republic of Ireland on a journey of self-discovery. However, the Irish interlude feels tacked on at the end and does not contribute meaningfully to the story. The book shows the impact of the Hollywood lifestyle not only on young stars, but also on the jaded and cynical adults who work there. It follows a white default, with racial, socio-economic, and sexual orientation diversity in secondary characters; a black female character is unfortunately portrayed in a highly stereotypical manner, bordering on caricature. Due to his complexion, Patrick believes that he may be biracial.
Despite the racy subject matter, this is a slow-moving story with a disappointing lack of resolution. (Fiction. 16-18)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3010-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
