Positively movie-ready.
Kelsey has lived her entire 17 years with her mother in a house set up like a fortress. When her agoraphobic mom disappears, Kelsey finds herself in real danger.
Kelsey’s mother was a famous kidnapping victim, and Kelsey is the daughter of the kidnapper. Her mom has no memory of the year she spent confined in a dark basement, but when she escaped she bought an upscale secluded house and rigged it up with a sophisticated security system, complete with barred windows and a panic room. A traffic accident puts the white teen in contact with classmate Ryan, a volunteer firefighter (and also white) who rescues her. On returning home from a ceremony honoring him, Kelsey realizes not only that her mother is missing, but that someone is trying to get into the house, sending her and Ryan into the panic room. Once their ordeal ends, Kelsey’s full of questions about her still-missing mother. All of Kelsey’s life, her mom has taught her to lie. Can it be that her mom has lied to her? Miranda writes some marvelously suspenseful scenes and keeps the story’s pace zooming along at a high clip during extensive action scenes. She keeps an underlying plotline of a romance with Ryan flowing along, and it provides nice relief from the suspense. If Ryan seems a bit too good to be true, fans won’t mind.
Positively movie-ready. (Thriller. 12-18)Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53751-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
A gentle romance set against a bummer of a backdrop.
Two teens get romantic in March 2020.
Maxine and Jonah first meet bumping into each other in the grocery store just as the world is starting to come to an end. It’s early 2020, and California’s going into lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19. Jonah’s been an anxious mess even before the deadly virus hit American shores, and Maxine (or as she prefers, Max) has been barely hanging on with a part-time gig buying other people’s groceries. The pair strike up some witty repartee over toilet paper that tips into full-on flirtation, eventually pushing them into the unlucky task of starting a relationship just as everyone’s trying to keep away from one another. As the two teens Zoom and text their way through the pandemic, class differences, mental health issues, and good old-fashioned melodrama rear their heads. The romance is sweet, and the novelty of the pandemic’s early days is effectively rendered, but readers’ mileage may vary when it comes to reliving the anxious second quarter of 2020. The authors never push the virus element too hard, smartly centering Max and Jonah’s relationship as a fairly typical getting-to-know-you courtship with a handful more speed bumps. The end result is a quiet exploration of two teens going through some heady times, the sort of read that will be appreciated, if not now, then in a year or two. Max and Jonah are presumed White.
A gentle romance set against a bummer of a backdrop. (content notes) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-32612-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Dynamically reckons with the real-life ramifications of someone who refuses to grow up.
A grim, modern-day manifestation of the Peter Pan tale drawn from subtle, dark elements in the original text.
Wendy Darling is a sweet, naïve 17-year-old who just moved to Chicago. One night, Peter Pan comes through her open window, expecting an empty house and instead becoming enamored with the girl inside. Wendy herself is immediately enchanted by Peter, whose boyish charm and good looks convince her to join him for a night on the town along with his spunky and snappy ex-girlfriend Tinkerbelle. During the course of a single night, Wendy runs into more of Peter’s connections, including a collection of orphans he houses off the grid, a Detective Hook eager to bring him down, and other counterparts from the source material (including the racist caricature of a Native girl, gracefully realized here as a three-dimensional young Ojibwe woman). But as the night goes on and Peter’s facade grows more transparent, the frightful truth at his center threatens the safety of everyone involved. Eschewing literal magic, Ancrum’s remix is spellbinding and psychologically compelling despite a slower-moving middle. The haunting truth surrounding Peter is well earned and disturbing, a perfect—and bleak—transformation of the character for the 21st century. Wendy is Black, Peter and Tink are White, and the supporting cast represents myriad racial and queer identities.
Dynamically reckons with the real-life ramifications of someone who refuses to grow up. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26526-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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