Tess knows that her transition to the elite preparatory school Thorn Abbey will be challenging, but when she falls for the mysterious and tortured Max, everything becomes hauntingly more difficult.
Tess, while shy and bookish, seems determined to find her way in her new school. However, her indomitable spirit is quickly shanghaied by an overwhelming obsession with the handsome and moody Max. Very little digging is required to unearth the terrible tragedy that haunts Max: the death of his girlfriend, Becca. Tess’ roommate, Devon, reveals that Becca was also her old roommate. Rather than seeing this as a bad omen, Tess seems to find the coincidence fortuitous. Devon’s repeated warnings, Max’s own rejections and even ghostly attacks cannot dissuade Tess from her objective: to claim Max as her own. The acknowledgments claim Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca as the book’s inspiration. However, other than a few minor plot points, Ohlin’s story bears little resemblance to the classic work, both in its content and its execution. Tess is more oblivious than tragic, and Max reads as shady rather than mysterious. Add in the stock secondary characters, and the resultant tale is little more than a watered-down ghost of the Hitchcock-worthy mystery.
Not classic . (Suspense. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-6486-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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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
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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This debut novel evokes a classic to present a girl searching for something true.
Tori Spring is a disaffected teenager: She can almost never finish a film in one sitting, she's smart but can't care about school anymore, and she dislikes her friends but is unwilling to forgo their company. About the only thing she cares about is her brother Charlie, who's recovering from an eating disorder. When a mysterious blog called Solitaire starts triggering pranks at her school, Tori isn't too interested, even if strange new boy Michael Holden tries to make her be. Tori's too trapped in her head, too convinced the whole world sucks, to care about Michael's overtures of friendship or the arrival at her school of an old friend, Lucas. But when Solitaire's pranks cross lines and people start getting hurt, Tori will be forced to discover if the world has anything good in it. Like Holden Caulfield, Tori is looking for something that isn’t phony, but while the story more or less achieves its goal of evoking a modern-day, English The Catcher in the Rye, it’s still not very engaging. Only Michael and Charlie are likely to engage readers’ sympathies, while Tori's unpleasantness makes it hard to see why Michael and Lucas are so fixated on her.
Still, Oseman’s novel will be popular with those who worship Holden. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-233568-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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