Sweet teen girl adventures, reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables.
Sixth-grader Hetty adjusts to a new school, finds a forest refuge, and learns the reason for a lurking stranger in West’s first installment of a Truman-era YA trilogy.
Henrietta “Hetty” Annette Lawrence tries to pay attention in math class but daydreams about the word “hypotenuse.” Born with a heart defect, now fixed by an operation, Hetty had been home-schooled in recent years by doting parents Dora and Daniel, the latter a lawyer who shares his tales of working in the Forest Service. The family has moved to a new home to be close to Hetty’s new school, the all-girls Haxton Country Academy. A bit shy around the others, she often hangs out in “Hannah,” a mighty oak in nearby “Olive Witch” forest (the name comes from Hetty mishearing her father say “all of which”). While hurt when not invited to a birthday party, Hetty also makes strides in her new world, including befriending schoolmate Melinda Morganthal, who has a considerate (and handsome) older brother, and gaining some attention by winning a local spelling bee. By novel’s end, there is a growing sense that Hetty is being watched. A dramatic act of nature clears up this mystery, significantly changing her life. West (Longer than Forevermore, 2013, etc.) includes an illustrated map and sketches of flowing-haired Hetty. While there is a sense of the time period, including mention of Daniel and Dora’s new 1949 Studebaker, physical location is left a bit hazy, perhaps to reflect this delightful heroine’s fanciful mind, although there’s missed opportunity to more richly fictionalize a real destination as did Anne of Green Gables, this work’s obvious influence. Still, West effectively builds suspense for this book’s final revelations, including shifting occasionally from Hetty’s third-person perspective to plant hints via other characters’ viewpoints. Best of all, parents will appreciate the “clean” nature of this novel, which should still please a tweener audience given its tee-up of the romance no doubt to come in the next installment of this series.
Sweet teen girl adventures, reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988678477
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Park Place Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.
An author’s trip to Venice takes a distinctly Borgesian turn.
In November 2020, soccer club Venizia F.C. offered Nigerian American author Madu a writing residency as part of its plan “to turn the team into a global entity of fashion, culture, and sports.” Flying to Venice for the fellowship, he felt guilty about leaving his immigrant parents, who were shocked to learn upon moving to the U.S. years earlier that their Nigerian teaching certifications were invalid, forcing his father to work as a stocking clerk at Rite Aid to support the family. Madu’s experiences in Venice are incidental to what is primarily a story about his family, especially his strained relationship with his father, who was disappointed with many of his son’s choices. Unfortunately, the author’s seeming disinterest in Venice renders much of the narrative colorless. He says the trip across the Ponte della Libertà bridge was “magical,” but nothing he describes—the “endless water on both sides,” the nearby seagulls—is particularly remarkable. Little in the text conveys a sense of place or the unique character of his surroundings. Madu is at his best when he focuses on family dynamics and his observations that, in the largely deserted city, “I was one of the few Black people around.” He cites Borges, giving special note to the author’s “The House of Asterion,” in which the minotaur “explains his situation as a creature and as a creature within the labyrinth” of multiple mirrors. This notion leads to the Borgesian turn in the book’s second half, when, in an extended sequence, Madu imagines himself transformed into a minotaur, with “the head of a bull” and his body “larger, thicker, powerful but also cumbersome.” It’s an engaging passage, although stylistically out of keeping with much of what has come before.
An intriguing but uneven family memoir and travelogue.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781953368669
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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