A high school senior’s Type A life implodes after her mother takes an overdose of pills.
When Juliet finds her mother unconscious on her bathroom floor after her parents’ separation, suddenly everything she used to value seems insignificant. She finds herself questioning her relationship with her longtime boyfriend, Jason, her parents’ outwardly perfect marriage, even her determination to get into Harvard. She sleeps with Declan, a talented Irish musician she just met, cuts and dyes her hair, and starts singing with Declan’s band. She still keeps studying for her SATs and other exams, but she soon realizes that she’s only doing it to keep her friends and family happy. “In a horrifying waking nightmare, I saw Jason and my parents and all my future…mentors and bosses telling me to keep doing something I hated doing because someday I would be glad to have done it.” As her mother recovers and she rebuilds her relationship with her father, Juliet learns how to ask what makes her happy instead of accepting others’ definitions of success. With clear prose and realistic dialogue, Kantor perceptively illustrates the pressure that accomplished teens put on themselves to achieve perfection.
This timely story will ring true for today’s disillusioned young people, who are discovering that years of good grades, piano lessons and internships don’t necessarily result in adult happiness. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-227923-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY
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Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
17
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A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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PROFILES
Amid a war and rising civil unrest, a young thief discovers the shocking power within her that sparks a revolution.
At 17, Mare knows that without an apprenticeship or job, her next birthday will bring a conscription to join the war. She contributes to her poor family’s income the only way she can, stealing from the Silvers, who possess myriad powers and force her and her fellow Reds into servitude. The Silvers literally bleed silver, and they can manipulate metal, plants and animals, among many other talents. When Mare’s best friend, Kilorn, loses his job and is doomed to conscription, she is determined to change his fate. She stumbles into a mysterious stranger after her plan goes awry and is pulled out of her village and into the world of Silver royalty. Once inside the palace walls, it isn’t long before Mare learns that powers unknown to red-blooded humans lie within her, powers that could lead a revolution. Familiar tropes abound. Mare is revealed as a great catalyst for change among classes and is groomed from rags to riches, and of course, seemingly kind characters turn out to be foes. However, Aveyard weaves a compelling new world, and Mare and the two men in her life evolve intriguingly as class tension rises. Revolution supersedes romance, setting the stage for action-packed surprises.
An inventive, character-driven twist breathes new life into tired fantasy trends. (Fantasy. 13 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-231063-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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