A story that explores confidence, bravery, and real-world pressures with admirable restraint, offering insights without...
In Smith’s YA novel, high-school senior Ada Holloway stumbles into controversy when a routine essay assignment drops her squarely in the middle of Freeport, Ohio’s culture wars.
Ada has little idea what she wants from her future, as her parents have already sketched out a path for her that she’s not sure she wants. Simply getting through her final semester is challenge enough. She’s secretly doing homework for star quarterback Beckett Forsythe and navigating the chaos of her rebellious cousin Molly moving in with the family. The one thing she does have figured out is her senior essay topic: the life of Freeport’s founder, Everett J. Washington, a formerly enslaved who served as a Union soldier in the Civil War. But that small certainty vanishes when the mayor abruptly removes Washington’s biography from every library shelf for unstated reasons, other than that it and other books “aren’t appropriate for younger patrons.” This transforms a straightforward assignment into an unplanned act of defiance. Under mounting pressure, Ada finds that she can barely get words on the page: “Get it together. Just write,” she says to herself. “As she typed, she winced at every clunky phrase and jumbled sentence. It was a nightmare to write half a page.” These and other moments capture the strain of a student pushed to her breaking point. With her only reliable source banned, Ada flounders until her best friend, David, proposes a bold workaround: a clandestine banned-book club, hosted inside the public library. What follows is a sharply relevant exploration of courage as Ada learns what it truly means to take a stand. Many young readers will come away with a clearer understanding of book challenges, censorship, and First Amendment rights, but the novel delivers these lessons with a light touch, grounding them in everyday struggles of high school kids. As Ada navigates the trials of adolescence, she discovers that choice and voice matter, and that even quiet actions can spark meaningful change.
A story that explores confidence, bravery, and real-world pressures with admirable restraint, offering insights without drifting into melodrama.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781970757033
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Amethyst Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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