Debut novelist Griffin tries to capture life on the streets of New York but fails to deliver actual grit. Smart-but-fat Ray and stupid-but-sexy José live in squat luxury (cable, Playstation, no adults) and commit petty crimes in northern Manhattan and the Bronx without ever treading on anyone else’s turf. Friendship and romance with a sassy Washington Heights girl, stints in juvie, attempts to go straight and various criminal escapades feel flat and the lack of any back story for the boys strips emotional resonance from their escapades. And it’s all so easy: They get caught only for petty things rather than the crimes that would have real consequences, and even after six months locked up the only squatters in their squat are dead junkies. This smoothed-out and glamorized vision of life on the streets, chronicled in dated, sometimes forced slang tempered by purple prose (“puked a downpour of summer hail”), may appeal to suburban readers, but city-savvy teens will laugh at the fantasy. (Fiction. 14 & up)
Pub Date: June 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3284-1
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
A sexy thriller where the ultimate prize is finding and embracing the truth—even if it’s difficult to understand.
A young woman must unlearn everything she knows about her parents in order to find the truth.
River, the daughter of a Filipino father and a white mother, finds her world irrevocably changed when her mother goes missing and her father dies in a house fire during her senior year of high school. She’s left with an additional mystery after an anonymous person donates $2,000,000 to her GoFundMe fundraiser. Together with her best friend, Tawny, her ex, Noah, and her new love interest, Logan, all of whom are cued white, River dives into her parents’ pasts. However, as she investigates, she realizes that everyone has a secret—and no one can be trusted. In this fast-paced thriller, Harlow captures the complexities of human emotions from grief to love. Her characters are well developed, especially Logan, who has an ideal blend of depth and attractiveness. Tawny, who’s adopted, has experienced grief of her own. Together, the characters move the plot with increasing speed through jaw-dropping twists. Letters incorporated into the story present other points of view, bringing texture to the story and increasing readers’ uncertainty about whom to believe. Harlow skillfully weaves together a page-turning mystery that’s enhanced by River and Logan’s steamy and passionate relationship.
A sexy thriller where the ultimate prize is finding and embracing the truth—even if it’s difficult to understand. (Romantic thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593855942
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A haunting page-turner that smartly explores the complexities of teenage relationships and feelings of self-worth.
When police investigate a teenage girl’s supposed suicide, New Helvetia High’s most exclusive friend group comes under scrutiny.
The Thrashers are high school royalty. Zack Thrasher (the group’s namesake), Lucy Reed, Paige Montgomery, and Julian Hollister are wealthy and attractive. Jodi Dillon, who feels ordinary by comparison, has been friends with Zack since childhood. Not just anyone can become a Thrasher, but that was Emily Mills’ goal. After Emily is found dead the evening of prom, rumors circulate around school that she was Thrashed—socially ostracized—for trying to join the clique. Everything starts to unravel after investigators find Emily’s journal detailing how she was bullied by all of them—except Jodi, who rebuffed her. Jodi feels compelled to seek the truth surrounding Emily’s death without implicating her friends, but the more she learns, the more she doubts their credibility. The story’s careful, highly effective pacing contributes to the increasingly unsettling tension as strange and terrifying incidents occur. Readers who empathize with insecure Jodi are kept in suspense until the end, feeling relief whenever the others show genuine care for her while nervously anticipating the possibility that harm may befall her. Main characters largely present white. Lucy has brown skin, and Jodi is cued as white and Latine.
A haunting page-turner that smartly explores the complexities of teenage relationships and feelings of self-worth. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781250377173
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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