In this 13th book about Alice (The Grooming of Alice, 2000, etc.), her romance with Patrick hits rocky ground, depicted in the gently realistic, often humorous, style that characterizes the series. As she enters high school, Alice feels mildly scared about her new school, happy about her father’s deepening romance, and heartbroken about Patrick’s interest in a new girl. She realizes that she depended on the romance to feel good about herself and decides that she needs to base her sense of worth on other aspects of her life. While her friends rally around, Alice bolsters her spirits by working on the high-school newspaper and joining the drama club. In a typical funny episode, she invites three former female prisoners—one a former prostitute—to Thanksgiving dinner as an act of charity, but implies to her father and brother that they are foreign refugees. On a more serious note, a friend tells Alice that she was sexually molested as a young girl, a subject handled with sensitivity and good sense. As these scenes suggest, the books in the series deal with progressively more serious issues as Alice gets older, allowing readers to keep enjoying the books as they too get older. Alice continues to be an “everygirl,” who, though blessed with a more loving family than many, still experiences heartache, questions her attractiveness without obsessing about it, and gets through the hard days as well as the good ones as best she can. Her fans will welcome her back while new readers are in for a treat. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82634-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Newbery-winning Spinelli spins a magical and heartbreaking tale from the stuff of high school. Eleventh-grader Leo Borlock cannot quite believe the new student who calls herself Stargirl. Formerly home-schooled, Stargirl comes to their Arizona high school with a pet rat and a ukulele, wild clothes and amazing habits. She sings “Happy Birthday” to classmates in the lunchroom, props a small glass vase with a daisy on her desk each class, and reenergizes the cheerleading squad with her boundless enthusiasm. But Stargirl even cheers for the opposing team. She’s so threatening to the regular ways of her fellows that she’s shunned. No one will touch her or speak to her—or applaud her success when she wins a state speech tournament. Leo’s in love with her, but finds that if he’s with her, he’s shunned, too. She loves him enough to try to fit in, but when that fails spectacularly, she illuminates the spring school dance like a Roman candle and disappears. The desert—old bones, flowering cactus, scented silence—is a living presence here. So is the demon of conformity, a teen monster of what’s normal, a demon no less hideous because it’s so well internalized in us all. Leo chooses normalcy over star stuff, but looking back as an adult he finds Stargirl’s presence in a hundred different ways in his own and in his former classmates’ lives. Once again Spinelli takes his readers on a journey where choices between the self and the group must be made, and he is wise enough to show how hard they are, even when sweet. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-679-88637-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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