Here, Chelsea narrates the events in her sophomore and junior years, when she modeled herself on Ashley—lovely, rich, and apparently self-possessed. Starting Crestwood High at that painful time in early adolescence when self-definition is all-important, Chelsea feels so afflicted by her ambitious mother's new career as guidance counselor that she bitterly rejects her, seeing her insights concerning Chelsea as "witchy" and invasive. Though still feeling close to her ineffectual dog-trainer father, she's ripe for a new role model, and so when, astonishingly, the perfect Ashley taps her as friend, she goes along willingly. Cracks in Ashley's veneer provide early glimpses of the emptiness within—her poems are someone else's, she claims that her stepmother is her father's mistress, she casually drops Chelsea from a long-anticipated fashion show for her own convenience—yet Chelsea remains a loyal follower. Meanwhile, her friend Pod does his own growing from sophomoric poseur to more effective doer; their developing affection provides contrast as well as humor, since with Pod Chelsea is assertive from the beginning. But it takes cataclysmic revelations about both parents and a tragedy involving Ashley's boyfriend, whose glamour masks another debilitating conflict, to get Chelsea to see others clearly and begin to define herself. One of our finest writers of YA novels, Peck deftly captures the evolving concerns of 15- and 16-year-olds—their speech, anxieties, and shifting relationships with parents and peers. His witty, concise style and a plot full of surprising turns carry the reader quickly along; yet his characters are born of unusual wisdom and empathy for the teen condition. Another winner.
Pub Date: May 15, 1987
ISBN: 044020206X
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energetic but at times heavy-handed, this dystopian tale seems destined for a screen adaptation.
Trial and punishment are carried out via a social media process called the Hive in this futuristic thriller created by a team that includes an actress, a film producer, and two writers.
The daughter of a famous hacker, high school senior Cassie is still grieving her dad’s recent death. Her mother, a classics professor named Rachel, is struggling both to make ends meet and with the ongoing presence of National Security Agency agents who keep nosing around her late husband’s doings. Alternating between Cassie’s and her mother’s third-person narration, the difficult relationship between the pair provides a believable emotional backbone for this high-concept, fast-paced, sometimes overly detailed cautionary tale of the morally fraught territory that results when technology and mob mentality mix. After Cassie makes a tasteless joke online about the new grandchild of the president (a figure who is so obviously Trump that the pretense of his name being fictionalized seems pointless), she must flee the ensuing violent wrath of the Hive, discovering its secrets along the way. Readers may be frustrated by the intelligent and sarcastic Cassie’s apparent inability to identify people who are clearly likely to betray her. Cassie is biracial—her mother is white, and her dad was black—and the secondary characters are realistically diverse.
Energetic but at times heavy-handed, this dystopian tale seems destined for a screen adaptation. (Science fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0060-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Outrageous and uproariously funny.
A girl plots a takedown of the toxic Speech and Debate team that rules her school.
When Sydney starts at Eaganville School for the Arts, she immediately runs afoul of the powerful Speech and Debate kids due to her mouthy nature. She’s adopted by other misfits with Speech grudges—athletic Lakshmi; former Speech star Elijah; and gay theater aficionado Thomas. Sydney decides to avenge her friends by joining Speech and Debate and destroying it from the inside. To do this, she must become good enough to stay on the varsity team all the way to Nationals. The dissent Sydney and friends sow within the team involves inflaming rivalries, toying with hormones, and various other dirty tricks—luckily, the varsity team members are so odious that their punishments remain hilarious. The true villain is the win-at-all-costs abusive coach. Sydney also copes with her family’s new normal—incarcerated father, dramatically reduced socio-economic status, and her mother’s boyfriend, a meathead lunk played for laughs (until he blossoms into a surprisingly supportive and caring character). Humor infuses everything—Sydney’s narration, gleeful profanity, irreverence, and elaborate scheme sequences. The members of the highly diverse cast have distinctive voices and personalities (Sydney and Elijah are white, Lakshmi is Indian, and Thomas is black). The infiltrate-and-destroy storyline combined with immersion in a subculture that is taken with deadly hilarious seriousness make this read like the demented love child of Mean Girls and Pitch Perfect.
Outrageous and uproariously funny. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-01007-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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