A missed opportunity to fully engage with a deeply serious issue
Floyd Twofeathers, a Cree teen, vents his frustrations in his secret journal, creating stories to alleviate the angst and confusion he experiences while living on the (fictional) Bitter Lake Reserve.
Suicides have become rampant, and things get even worse when a group of teen girls follows through on a suicide pact posted on social media. It is after this that Floyd feels the urgency to talk with his father, the hereditary tribal chief, to offer help to heal his community. Floyd’s mother, a medicine woman, also urges her husband to work with Floyd, but Floyd’s father, who is overwhelmed with the community’s problems, rejects them both, instead inviting a white actor to the reserve to make a movie in hopes of raising much-needed money. Meanwhile, Floyd hangs out with his friends, going fishing and playing video games even as he rallies them in support of their community and courts a beautiful young woman. This slim book struggles to maintain a consistent tone. What begins as a story addressing the serious impact of suicide in First Nations communities (including a lengthy, potentially triggering flashback to an attempted suicide early in the story) swerves jarringly to a scene in which Floyd’s parents kiss and cuddle as if they had not just learned of the newest suicides. Likewise Floyd’s high jinks with his friends and his instant infatuation with a friend’s beautiful sister (who’s described with stereotyped cliché as “exotic,” with “almond-shaped eyes” and “full ruby red lips”) distract from the suicide plotline. Furthermore, locating the story on a fictional reserve has a homogenizing effect on what is a varied and heterogeneous nation.
A missed opportunity to fully engage with a deeply serious issue . (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4594-1230-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: James Lorimer
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
A smart, timely outing.
Two teens connect through a mysterious podcast in this sophomore effort by British author Oseman (Solitaire, 2015).
Frances Janvier is a 17-year-old British-Ethiopian head girl who is so driven to get into Cambridge that she mostly forgoes friendships for schoolwork. Her only self-indulgence is listening to and creating fan art for the podcast Universe City, “a…show about a suit-wearing student detective looking for a way to escape a sci-fi, monster-infested university.” Aled Last is a quiet white boy who identifies as “partly asexual.” When Frances discovers that Aled is the secret creator of Universe City, the two embark on a passionate, platonic relationship based on their joint love of pop culture. Their bond is complicated by Aled’s controlling mother and by Frances’ previous crush on Aled’s twin sister, Carys, who ran away last year and disappeared. When Aled’s identity is accidently leaked to the Universe City fandom, he severs his relationship with Frances, leaving her questioning her Cambridge goals and determined to win back his affection, no matter what the cost. Frances’ narration is keenly intelligent; she takes mordant pleasure in using an Indian friend’s ID to get into a club despite the fact they look nothing alike: “Gotta love white people.” Though the social-media–suffused plot occasionally lags, the main characters’ realistic relationship accurately depicts current issues of gender, race, and class.
A smart, timely outing. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-233571-5
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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