"The bumblebee flies anyway"—and so too the life-sized model car, which Barney finds and dismantles in a nearby junkyard to reassemble in the attic, will ride. . . straight off the roof of The Complex, the institution where terminally ill teens are receiving experimental treatment. Barney conceives the car project largely for wasting Mazzo, rich and handsome but bitter, who wishes to "go out in a blaze of glory" and asks to be unplugged. But Barney has really taken an interest in Mazzo because of Mazzo's beautiful twin sister Cassie, and she in turn has a special interest in her brother's condition: for years she has noticed that when he is hurt, she feels it in her own body. (When he dies, then, what about her?) But Barney doesn't know about Cassie's "thing" or the reason for her increasing headaches; and only well along does he discover that he himself is not a "control" but one of the dying, like Mazzo and Billy the Kidney and the others. Those fragmented, nightmare memories he can't track down have been created for him by the doctors, to screen out the real, unacceptable memories of how he came to the institution. Until this discovery there are unexplained flashes, sinister-sounding treatments, and references—to "the handyman" and "the merchandise," Barney's terms for the doctor and the medicine—which seem more mysterious than they are. This air of ambiguity and vaguely totalitarian menace, a common thread in Cormier's fiction, sometimes seems a little contrived and arbitrary here, but it is far from inappropriate to a patient-inmate's view of hospital life. And if that final triumphant push of the car, with Mazzo dying on the roof in Barney's arms (Barney comes out of remission and dies soon after), is a little clichÉd, it is not sentimentally rendered as it might be in other hands. All in all the novel hasn't the consuming, focused tension of previous Cormier YAs, but that is not to deny its crisp, sure craftsmanship, suggestive applications, and holding power.
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1983
ISBN: 044090871X
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1983
A solid sophomore novel celebrating love that begs for a soundtrack.
Queer Black girls fall in love at a summer music festival.
When dating the top basketball recruit in Indiana turns disastrous, ruining her socially, emotionally, and in her mother’s eyes, perpetually in love 16-year-old Olivia Brooks begs her best friend, Imani Garrett, to take a summer road trip to the Farmland Arts and Music Festival in Georgia. Imani agrees on one condition: Olivia cannot hook up with anyone on the trip. Meanwhile, Toni Jackson is heading to Farmland for the first time without her musician-turned-roadie dad, who was killed 8 months ago. Joined by her best friend, Peter Menon (whose surname cues him as Indian), Toni is trying to figure her life out—college or something else? She believes that if she performs in the festival’s Golden Apple amateur competition, the truth will become clear. The four meet in Georgia, and when all the solo slots in the competition are full, Toni and Olivia agree to enter as a duo and help each other with their individual quests—Toni’s to perform on stage, Olivia’s to be distracted from the upcoming judicial hearing over violating behavior by her ex-boyfriend and to win the prize of a much-needed car. Although Imani and Peter feel more like devices than well-developed characters with substantial relationships to the protagonists, the exploration of Olivia’s tendency to adapt to others’ expectations of her is wonderfully nuanced, and her relationship with Toni is delightfully swoon-y.
A solid sophomore novel celebrating love that begs for a soundtrack. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-66223-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders.
Andy and Shelbi find love while navigating mental health challenges in suburban Georgia.
It all starts when 18-year-old Andy Criddle drunkenly texts the wrong number. The mistaken recipient ends up offering him emotional support and asks him not to drive drunk. Despite agreeing, he gets behind the wheel—and into an accident. After being charged with a DUI, Andy, the son of a congresswoman running for Senate, is barred from attending his graduation and shamed in the press. Meanwhile, 16-year-old AP physics student Shelbi Augustine, who finds car crashes interesting for scientific reasons, picks up Andy’s wallet at the scene of the wreck. She returns it to him in class and gives him a pep talk before nervously rushing away. The judge orders Andy to complete community service at a soup kitchen where Shelbi regularly volunteers, and when their paths cross again, she confesses that she was the person he was texting. As they grow closer, Shelbi, who has bipolar depression, has Andy sign a friendship agreement. Rule No. 6 reads, “Do not, under any circumstances, fall in love with Shelbi.” Naturally, this is a rule destined to be broken. The comfort and ease the two have are mirrored by Stone’s breezy writing. Her casual tone acts as a potent salve for the heart-wrenching scenes and the searing portrayal of healing. Most characters are Black; Andy’s dad is White, and Shelbi’s paternal grandmother is from India.
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders. (author’s note) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-30770-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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