Based on an intriguing premise but fumbles its potential.
A woman’s death leads a young relative to investigate her final wishes.
Sixteen-year-old Peter Brewer and his extended white South African family are summoned to the manor of his distant—and recently deceased—relation Patricia Woodwright for a “week of remembrance” before the reading of her will. Peter spends this time exploring the manor and nursing a crush on Larissa, who’s Black and white and whose mother and grandmother were close friends of Patricia’s. While having a look around Patricia’s bedroom, Peter and Larissa discover a cache of letters written throughout the 1920s, revealing Patricia’s youthful romance with Mandla, a Zulu employee of her father’s. Their suspicions that Patricia’s true will may be missing lead the duo to investigate further even as Peter attempts to navigate his romantic feelings. Clunky dialogue, overwritten narration, and Peter’s casually misogynistic attitude toward Larissa, which isn’t unpacked in the third-person narration, turn this potentially compelling mystery into a repetitive trundle. The discussions of racial identity and historic and modern racial relations in South Africa are stilted, and readers may be surprised at some of the ignorance the protagonists display of the social and civic status of Black South Africans, given that they were born less than a decade after apartheid ended. While certain clues to the mystery are cleverly laid, the pacing is uneven, with a noticeably rushed ending.
Based on an intriguing premise but fumbles its potential. (glossary) (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 99781960803269
Page Count: 169
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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