Adolescents going through similar ups and downs will find plenty here to love.
Hearts, friendships, and bags of Ritalin go flying in Leslie’s fast-paced YA coming-of-age novel.
Iconic rocker The Blade has banished his 16-year-old son Blair Matthews to live with his mother as a Trudeau High transfer student, hoping that a change of pace to the Canuck way of life will help the boy kick the cocaine habit he picked up in Los Angeles. Blair, beloved by everyone’s grandma as the star of a “Tim Horton’s Christmas commercial they play every year in French and English that makes everyone cry,” soon establishes himself as the leader of the high-school band the Bad Luck Nickel, joining starstruck classmates Marco, Randy, and Tank. Blair’s new girlfriend—Marco’s twin sister, Jules—is even more smitten, even if she has some reservations about Blair’s past. Things begin to fall apart one chaotic, booze-fueled night when Marco, Randy, and Tank find the father of Marco’s ex-girlfriend Bianca passed out from a heart attack in a snowbank. Meanwhile, Jules meets up with her best friend, Vicky, and snorts her first of many bumps of crushed-up Ritalin. The girls run afoul of local “shit disturbers” Yannis and Andre, who chase them to the secret spot they share with the Bad Luck Nickel boys. As Blair’s LA past closes in on him, the consequences of that night have a (literally) explosive impact on the Bad Luck Nickel’s rise to the top of the local scene. Leslie’s prose is fast-paced and strewn with appropriate intrusions of bravado-fueled expletives and Quebecois slang (“Va chier, you fuckin’ psycho”). The novel could use tightening up; the sheer volume of exclamation marks is overwhelming, and some of the more compelling subplots, like Randy’s grief over his older sister Nicole’s relatively recent death, get lost in the noise. But the narrative is effective at capturing the earnest angst and furious posturing of teenage life. The characters’ thoughts read like uncut diary entries: “I bet he knows that I’ll take the less and less because I am pathetic and stupid and blindly in love with him.” Tabarnak, c’est difficile to be a teen.
Adolescents going through similar ups and downs will find plenty here to love.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781068864001
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Ausable Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
© Copyright 2026 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.
