Thirteen-year-old Isabelle has a gaping hole in her life: her father died several years ago, and she has never expressed her emotions about the tragedy. She fills the void by binging on junk food, then forcing herself to throw up all those calories. She also finds a new friend, Ashley, a beauty and the most popular girl in their middle school, when the two meet in a group-therapy session for girls with eating disorders. Ashley has progressed much further into bulimia, and convinces Isabelle to leave her own friends and join the popular gang. As the story progresses, Isabelle discovers that Ashley isn’t as perfect as she had believed. Clearly and simply written with a nice balance of humor and drama, with insight into the mind of 13-year-olds and how families suffer from trauma, this story can speak to girls coping with their own transitions into adolescence. (Fiction. 10-16)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-57131-652-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl—who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture—learns to speak up for herself. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage—a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2006
ISBN: 0-618-50455-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Intertwined spectral and real worlds deliver double the thrills.
Leaving his actual body behind in prison, Smoke can move through the world as a ghost in this fantastic yet real portrait of a survivor seeking answers.
John “Smoke” Conlan has survived a brutal beating from his father, a murder conviction, and prison life. His uncanny ability evidently triggered by the beating, Smoke exists inside and outside the fictional Greater Denver Youth Offender Rehabilitation Center (unrealistically represented as a maximum security prison). Smoke keeps his physical body protected on the inside thanks to the balance of favors earned outside his body. On one such errand, he discovers that a young waitress at a seedy dive can actually see him. Smoke’s vivid present-tense narration is filtered according to his concerns. He insists that he is innocent of killing his favorite teacher but guilty of killing a fellow student in self-defense, keeping readers teetering between a belief that the punishment is justified and cheering Smoke on to fight for freedom. The narrative’s romance is chaste, and it tempers the intensity brought to the story by the threats of guards, fellow inmates, and outside criminals. Though the complex plot is based on an impossible premise, readers will be flipping the pages, watching the diverse cast (Smoke is white) race toward the climax.
Intertwined spectral and real worlds deliver double the thrills. (Paranormal suspense. 11-16)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2597-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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