Full of potential but unfortunately never quite finds its sea legs.
Seventeen-year-old Mary Reade has always longed for the sea; surviving poverty by living as a boy, she sails under the command of a cruel and tyrannical captain.
When their ship is boarded by pirates, Mary joins the pirate crew as Mark Reade, seizing a way to head toward Nassau, where her childhood best friend and crush resides. She immediately becomes smitten with Calico Jack Rackham’s partner, Anne Bonny, who is everything Mary isn’t: fiery, impetuous, and feminine. It becomes clear Anne’s also smitten, but Mary is terrified of the potentially deadly consequences of coming out. When she does reveal her secret, she discovers Anne will do whatever’s necessary to survive—including outing Mary and forcing her to make some difficult choices. Debut author McNamara doesn’t shy away from depicting the horrors of a misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic society. The third-person narration always uses feminine pronouns for the protagonist, although Mary expresses discomfort with claiming a binary gender identity. At times, Anne’s characterization leans toward the cheating bisexual, and Mary’s self-doubt and self-loathing may be difficult, rather than enlightening, for trans and nonbinary readers. Readers well-versed in the lives of the famous pirate duo may feel hornswoggled that so much of their known story has been underwhelmingly altered for this telling, and pirate fans will feel disappointed that there is relatively little swashbuckling.
Full of potential but unfortunately never quite finds its sea legs. (Historical fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2705-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Lyrical and inspirational, though Lala’s inexplicably outsider view of her own culture, complete with sneers at harmless...
A white boy afraid to leave his family meets a Romani girl who wants a brief romantic encounter in the Nevada desert.
Lala’s family sells used cars in Portland, Ore., but is spending a week in the blistering heat of Nevada in order to fleece the gazhè who come to Burning Man; surely the hippies will pay generously to have their fortunes told. Ben lives in a company town that’s dying along with its shuttering gypsum mine. In alternating chapters, Lala and Ben tell of their coming-of-age crises: Lala fears the stifling sameness of her coming arranged marriage, while Ben is ashamed of the track scholarship that will provide his escape to college while his family and neighbors leave their soon-to-be ghost town for unemployment. Lala, for Ben, is his brief summer dalliance, the manic pixie dream girl who distracts him from his fears. Ben, for Lala, is the trigger she uses to take control of and redirect her life. Lala’s a powerful and independent young woman, though she also exhibits too many romantic gypsy tropes, with her “mess of dark curls...wild” and cascading over an hourglass figure, speaking in contraction-free sentences that entice Ben with their foreignness.
Lyrical and inspirational, though Lala’s inexplicably outsider view of her own culture, complete with sneers at harmless cultural practices, is a deeply jarring note . (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-74334-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
Only for the largest and most well-used LGBT collections.
Seventeen-year-old twins Andrew and Andrea Morris share everything until Ryder Coltrane arrives on the scene.
In their small New York town, Andrew and Andrea are stars of their respective soccer teams at school and are hoping for scholarships to the same college. Both are popular. Andrew dates a new girl every couple months, but he never feels comfortable in the relationships. Ryder has moved to town to stay with his aunt and uncle while his parents are deployed to Germany, and he joins the twins’ small group of close friends. Andrew notices stirrings of strange feelings when Ryder is near. When Ryder offers a kiss, Andrew takes him up on it, and the two begin a secret relationship. However, secrets are hard to keep in small towns, especially from someone as close as a twin sister. Lavoie’s debut may be well-intentioned, but the tale is buried in pedestrian prose and larded through with details and scenes that do little to nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters. The situations may be realistic, but the characters don’t speak, and often don’t act, like real people.
Only for the largest and most well-used LGBT collections. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60282-743-1
Page Count: 243
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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