An offbeat tear-jerker with a sense of humor and a call to action.
Stewart’s latest YA novel follows a dying teenager as he navigates his final days during his senior year at an elite private boarding school.
As the new school year begins, everyone keeps asking Tremendous “Tremmy” Sinclair what he did over the summer. It turns out that during the school break, he was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, went through chemotherapy, and broke up with his girlfriend via text. His parents want to pay for expensive experimental and alternative treatments, but he’s given up on the possibility of “miracles.” They offer to take him on a trip around the world during his last months of life, but Tremmy just wants to go to school, be with his friends, and try to “die well”—although he’s not yet sure what the latter would entail. Initially, Tremmy, who’s wealthy and White, doesn’t think about his privilege, but when his best friend, Jenkins, shoots a crossbow in the direction of a party crasher, he starts to question everything he’s ever known. The young man has surprising misadventures and gets into all sorts of juvenile (and not-so-juvenile) trouble with a new group of rebellious pals. Stewart’s rendition of high school life is so honest and realistic, and his characters so complex, that readers are sure to see aspects of themselves in these pages. The book offers a unique, well-paced, and darkly comedic coming-of-age story with a sometimes-unlikable narrator at its center. Along the way, Stewart even explores the option of assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses with no chance of survival. Indeed, there’s no shying away from themes of death in this story; Tremmy even has a habit of writing obituaries for everyone he knows. In this way, the book asks an intriguing question: Is thinking about one’s mortality unhealthy and morbid––or just a part of becoming an adult?
An offbeat tear-jerker with a sense of humor and a call to action.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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