A romance that tackles serious issues with mixed results.
A naïve girl is forced to reconcile truths she thought she knew with the reality of the boy she loves.
Returning to Colorado from New York City, where she said her goodbyes to her long-term boyfriend, Amoris Westmore, a 17-year-old White girl, is looking forward to nothing more than resuming her normal life. That is until her mother drops the bombshell that their new tenants are their old friends Kaydene Rush and her son, Jamison, a Black family who has moved back to the area. Jamison’s presence prompts Amoris to forge her own path—opening her eyes to the complex world around her, she sees the flaws in her self-proclaimed progressive town, her family, and herself. Attempting to prove herself to Jamison as she wrestles with her new understanding of race, she goes after a patriotic school mural that depicts a slave ship, in the process putting Jamison, one of the few Black students, in a vulnerable position. Now Amoris must come to terms with the impact of her actions without losing the boy she loves. Amoris is a realistically flawed protagonist facing her own selfish tendencies. Unfortunately, the book’s treatment of the complexities of race often comes across as forced despite a few gems about confronting privilege. Ultimately, however, racism feels like a minor obstacle in the way of a greater love story.
A romance that tackles serious issues with mixed results. (author's note, reading group guide) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1964-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Skyscape
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This scorching glimpse of life (and death) among the moneyed classes hits its marks, if a bit mechanically.
A summertime stay on Martha’s Vineyard confirms everything Linden thinks about rich people.
Best known for emotional YA romances, Cotugno tries her hand at an emotional whodunit—and readers who can roll with the weird attraction her protagonist seems to exert on the two main young women here may find themselves caught up in an engrossing whirl of, as the title promises, lies, secrets, and louche living. Hardly has he arrived for a two-week stay at palatial August House than Michael Linden and his host and boarding school roommate Jasper’s twin sister, Eliza, are bedroom-bound; his ghosted former platonic friend Holiday turns up; and Greg, despised boyfriend of another houseguest, winds up in a coma after an apparent accident. Dragged along by Holiday, who, along with inexplicably letting bygones be bygones, turns out to be an enthusiastic amateur sleuth, scholarship student Linden finds plenty of fuel for his (supposedly) secret resentment of the privileged classes and the way they can get away with anything. Though not, as it turns out after a comfortably conventional denouement complete with surprise confession, murder. Also, as a tease at the end suggests, for all that he comes clean about several secrets of his own, Linden leads the pack in the “things to hide” department. Aside from one prominent supporting character—a brown-skinned lacrosse champion—the central cast reads White.
This scorching glimpse of life (and death) among the moneyed classes hits its marks, if a bit mechanically. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780593433287
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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