An engaging, if somewhat predictable, coming-of-age tale.
A young woman discovers that her difficult aunt’s past is not what she expected in this YA novel.
Gwyn Madison has been accepted to a college in Boston, much to her Aunt Delia’s chagrin. Gwyn wants to study graphic design at an art school there, but Delia won’t pay for a college far from their home in Virginia. The summer after Gwyn graduates from high school, she and Delia are at odds. Gwyn stubbornly insists that she wants to attend the Boston school and thinks Delia’s hesitancy is because she doesn’t approve of art as a career. Then she finds out that Delia used to paint, which piques Gwyn’s interest (“I tried to imagine Aunt Delia in a painting smock, with a permanent smudge on her right middle finger”). She also discovers that Delia has been receiving regular letters about someone named Andrew. Gwyn decides it’s up to her to discover Andrew’s identity. She starts snooping and uncovering clues about her aunt’s life, including a man called Adam, who wrote Delia letters from Vietnam during the war. Gwyn’s investigation leads her to a woman named Brenda, whose son, Isaac, agrees to help the amateur sleuth and later asks her out. Gwyn and Isaac have a touching summer romance as she continues to piece together clues. She quickly learns that everyone has secrets and that people’s pasts are much more complicated than they seem. In Wheeler’s novel, Gwyn’s motives are questionable; the narrative implies that she thinks she can uncover a big secret to use as leverage to get Delia to pay for the Boston college. But as Gwyn unearths the secret, she finds that it might bring her and Delia closer together instead. The author tells a sweet tale that will appeal to YA readers. While the backstory is introduced awkwardly at the beginning of the book, once the tale gains momentum, it is well written. Unfortunately, the secret involving Andrew is a bit clichéd and unsurprising. Still, Gwyn is a well-drawn character who is friendly and inquisitive, and her eventful summer after high school is a milestone a lot of readers will relate to.
An engaging, if somewhat predictable, coming-of-age tale.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781957656090
Page Count: 267
Publisher: Monarch Educational Services, L.L.C.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Guaranteed to fly off the shelves.
Cliques writ large take over in the first of a projected dystopian trilogy.
The remnant population of post-apocalyptic Chicago intended to cure civilization’s failures by structuring society into five “factions,” each dedicated to inculcating a specific virtue. When Tris, secretly a forbidden “Divergent,” has to choose her official faction in her 16th year, she rejects her selfless Abnegation upbringing for the Dauntless, admiring their reckless bravery. But the vicious initiation process reveals that her new tribe has fallen from its original ideals, and that same rot seems to be spreading… Aside from the preposterous premise, this gritty, paranoid world is built with careful details and intriguing scope. The plot clips along at an addictive pace, with steady jolts of brutal violence and swoony romance. Despite the constant assurance that Tris is courageous, clever and kind, her own first-person narration displays a blank personality. No matter; all the “good” characters adore her and the “bad” are spiteful and jealous. Fans snared by the ratcheting suspense will be unable to resist speculating on their own factional allegiance; a few may go on to ponder the questions of loyalty and identity beneath the façade of thrilling adventure.
Guaranteed to fly off the shelves. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 3, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202402-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
A deeply moving account of love in its many forms.
A senior contends with first love and heartache in this spectacular debut.
Sensitive, smart Frank Li is under a lot of pressure. His Korean immigrant parents have toiled ceaselessly, running a convenience store in a mostly black and Latinx Southern California neighborhood, for their children’s futures. Frank’s older sister fulfilled their parents’ dreams—making it to Harvard—but when she married a black man, she was disowned. So when Frank falls in love with a white classmate, he concocts a scheme with Joy, the daughter of Korean American family friends, who is secretly seeing a Chinese American boy: Frank and Joy pretend to fall for each other while secretly sneaking around with their real dates. Through rich and complex characterization that rings completely true, the story highlights divisions within the Korean immigrant community and between communities of color in the U.S., cultural rifts separating immigrant parents and American-born teens, and the impact on high school peers of society’s entrenched biases. Yoon’s light hand with dialogue and deft use of illustrative anecdotes produce a story that illuminates weighty issues by putting a compassionate human face on struggles both universal and particular to certain identities. Frank’s best friend is black and his white girlfriend’s parents are vocal liberals; Yoon’s unpacking of the complexity of the racial dynamics at play is impressive—and notably, the novel succeeds equally well as pure romance.
A deeply moving account of love in its many forms. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-984812-20-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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