No new literary ground is broken here, but readers seeking a sweet story of first love will sigh appreciatively.
Love blossoms between a summer boy and a local girl in a chaste romance set on the foggy coast of Maine.
Goofy out-of-towner Oliver sweeps the virginal, insecure Mandy off her feet with his warm smile and sketch pad. What follows is a whirlwind of blueberry hand pies, stolen kisses, and crafty high jinks to save the local lighthouse. Dalton's light prose sidesteps the current vogue for overwrought darkness in teen fiction; the only shadow cast on the romance is the inevitability of summer’s end, and the dramatic tension in their innocent attachment centers on Oliver’s wish for Mandy to find her voice and use it. Employing simple tropes—the misunderstood loner, the anxious-harridan mom, the beauty-queen best friend—Dalton imparts simple wisdom about being true to oneself and seeing beyond surface impressions of other people. The mildness of the story harkens back to an earlier era of teen romance, belying the ubiquity of cellphones and Internet connections. Readers titillated by the butt-groping clinch on the front cover may well be disappointed by the innocence within.
No new literary ground is broken here, but readers seeking a sweet story of first love will sigh appreciatively. (Romance. 11-14)Pub Date: May 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3609-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Tori’s never given much thought to boyfriends or climbing the popularity ladder until she spends the summer apart from her nouveau riche BFF, Sienna. Sienna has come back from vacation with hair extensions, sophistication and a long-distance boyfriend named Antonio. Tori enjoys the popularity she’s acquired as a result of Sienna’s friendship, but she also feels a little competitive, so she makes up a fake boyfriend named Sebastian. Even as Tori realizes that Sienna’s boyfriend is also fake, she gets tangled in her own web of lies. Though she worries about losing her new friends as well as Sienna, Tori knows she has to come clean about Sebastian. Tori’s honesty and sense of humor make for an exuberant read. The dialogue is realistic, and Springer brings refreshing personalities to standard character types; Tori’s parents are divorced, but both parents are active in her life, for instance, and the popular girls aren’t mean. A subplot about a teacher’s drinking feels extraneous, but it doesn’t distract from this sweet story about truth and friendship. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-374-39910-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
An unlikely premise isn’t the weakest feature of this illogical, contrived and poorly blocked-out eco-thriller. In this devastated, Mad Max–style future, North America has devolved into warring, depopulated regions, and nearly all of the planet’s fresh water has melted into the oceans, become polluted or is tightly controlled by tyrannical governments and corporations. Teenage Midwesterners Vera and Will trek through this blasted landscape to rescue their kidnapped friend, Kai. Despite having no idea who took Kai or where they went, Vera and Will stay tight on his trail thanks to fortuitously timed help from rough-cut but heart-of-gold Water Pirates, casually murderous terrorists and a remarkably well-armed freelance desalinator. After repeated miraculous escapes from captivity or death, Vera and Will are led straight to an offshore platform where Kai and his father are being held, overhear all the political and corporate kingpins discussing their plans and get away. In a bewildering denouement, they somehow liberate the world with a televised geyser that springs from an untapped aquifer that Kai has found using psychic abilities. Huh? The high body count may keep bottom feeders engaged. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4022-4369-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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