A well-balanced drama with plenty of heart.
In Tipper’s YA novel, a 14-year-old American girl on a trip to Greece is determined to make her big-time plans a reality—even if her mom and grandmother don’t approve.
After moving into a new, smaller house in New Canaan, Connecticut, with her family, Kat Baker has plans to train with her high school’s cross-country track team, become its star runner, and make the captain of the boys’ team, Mike Doherty, fall head over heels for her. But before her plans can come together, Kat’s mother whisks her and her younger brother to Greece to visit their grandmother, Yiayiá Sofia, with plans to stay for the whole summer. Kat’s arrival in the sleepy town of Paralia doesn’t bode well; the heat is oppressive, for one thing, and she can barely communicate with her Greek relatives, as she doesn’t speak their language. Kat decides on her first jet-lagged night awake to continue her cross-country training on local mountain roads, among other places. She runs along the Greek coast in the wee hours of the morning and discovers that the area has many facets; she encounters busy fishing harbors, men with misconceptions about American girls, and a single, attractive Greek teenager with his own dreams. Gradually, Kat comes to terms with her Greek American identity and learns to march proudly to the beat of her own drum. Tipper’s debut novel is imbued with classic and appealing coming-of-age story elements. As a protagonist, Kat is shown to be headstrong, sharp, and brave: “By the time she got back to New Canaan, she’d have trained harder than anyone on the team. Because by the end of the summer, she was going to be able to run to the top of this mountain.” Her life in Greece quickly becomes intriguingly messy; her interactions with family members who don’t quite understand her are fraught, and her encounters with certain strangers in the novel are palpably tense. But Kat’s adventures also include pleasant encounters, including a sweet friendship with her 12-year-old cousin, Yeorgia,and a finely calibrated first romance with young fisherman and aspiring artist, Theofilus.
A well-balanced drama with plenty of heart.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781684633067
Page Count: 248
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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BOOK REVIEW
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