Forgettable.
A white high school senior, unsure of whom to trust, navigates romance and secrets in Collins’ (Until We Meet Again, 2015, etc.) third novel.
After her involvement in a devastating car accident during junior year, Shelby’s anxiety and panic attacks became so severe that she entered a clinical program for “neural restructuring”—a combination of “brain stimulation” and hypnosis—to wipe her most painful memories. Both she and her mom are ready for her life to settle back to normal, complete with auditions for the lead role of Juliet in the school play. Yet although she has no memory of the accident, Shelby can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right. Little, unpredictable triggers still spike her anxiety, and there’s a boy—a boy named Auden who claims not only that she knows him, but that they are in love and that the doctors wiped her memories of him too at her mother’s request. Drawn to him, Shelby must decide whether she will trust him and secretly explore this old-but-new relationship or whether something feels wrong there, too. Shelby’s best friend’s escape from an emotionally abusive relationship leads both characters and readers to question the health of Shelby’s relationship with Auden, whose power in their relationship frequently wavers over the line of abusive. Shelby’s first-person narration sets up readers to discover the truth as Shelby does, but her present-tense voice is so bland it undercuts the tension, and readers will find the plot easy to predict.
Forgettable. (Thriller. 14-17)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4760-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Several yards short of a touchdown.
A transgender boy starting over at a new school falls hard for a popular cheerleader with a reputation to protect in this debut.
On the first day of senior year, transgender boy Pony locks eyes with cisgender cheerleader Georgia. They both have pasts they want to leave behind. No one at Hillcrest High knows that Pony is transgender, and he intends to keep it that way. Georgia’s last boyfriend shook her trust in boys, and now she’s determined to forget him. As mutual attraction draws them together, Pony and Georgia must decide what they are willing to risk for a relationship. Pony’s best friend, Max, who is also transgender, disapproves of Pony’s choice to live stealth; this disagreement leads to serious conflict in their relationship. Meanwhile, Georgia and Pony behave as if Pony’s trans identity was a secret he was lying to her about rather than private information for him to share of his own volition. The characters only arrive at a hopeful resolution after Pony pays high physical and emotional prices. McSmith places repeated emphasis on the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative when the characters discuss trans identities. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main characters are white.
Several yards short of a touchdown. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294317-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one.
Teens become astronauts in record time for an inaugural space mission.
After losing his family to “the greatest flood Rome has ever known,” skilled white Italian swimmer Leo Danieli would never have expected that in his darkest moment he would be drafted by the European Space Agency to attend the International Space Training Camp, where teens will train to terraform and colonize Jupiter’s moon Europa for human settlement. California native Naomi Ardalan, a second-generation Iranian-American, has also been chosen for her expertise in science and technology. During a period of violent climate change worldwide, Earth’s governments are desperate to draft teens for a space mission for which they have only a few weeks in which to prepare. Twenty-four teen finalists, many orphaned by cataclysmic natural disasters, have been chosen from all over the world to compete for this space colonization mission. Warnings come to Leo and Naomi that there is a more sinister aspect to this mission, especially after things go tragically awry with other candidates during the training. The relationship that develops between Naomi and Leo feels forced, as if their meeting necessitates speedy deployment of a romantic cliché. The use of predictable plot devices, along with the fundamentally ludicrous premise, undermines any believability that would make a reader invest in such an elaborate space journey.
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one. (Science fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-265894-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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