As a portrait of the emerging adolescent, it engages, even if it gives the effects of the kidnapping on its victim short...
A girl loses her best friend when he’s kidnapped by his father at 7 and must cope when he returns 10 years later.
After constantly wondering about his fate for a decade, at first Emmy doesn’t know how to approach Oliver when he returns, but soon their former friendship becomes a romance. However, family difficulties persist. Oliver can’t fit in with his mother and her new family, feeling as though he’s been “kidnapped all over again.” Emmy’s parents have overprotected her to the extent that she lies to them about her surfing and even applying to college, triggering near hysteria in her mother when she is found out. Meanwhile, they also deal with their friends, who suffer more typical adolescent traumas. As the story progresses, Benway peels away the surface and digs down to the raw emotions the teens and their families feel, focusing on Emmy’s family as seen from the inside while watching Oliver’s family from the outside. She avoids depicting any deep psychological wounds that Oliver suffers, while indicating that those wounds exist. Instead, the story becomes more about the struggle between Emmy and her parents, who suffocate her with their irrational fears, than a study of deep emotional trauma.
As a portrait of the emerging adolescent, it engages, even if it gives the effects of the kidnapping on its victim short shrift. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-233059-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
A worthy second-chance romance.
In this follow-up to 2021’s Better Than the Movies, a 20-year-old college freshman gets a second chance at his dreams.
After the death of his father and his mother’s subsequent physical and emotional disappearance, Wes Bennett left behind all of his plans and the girl he made them with to go home and take care of Sarah, his younger sister. But now, Sarah has graduated, his mom is back on her feet, and by some miracle, Wes has an offer to pitch for UCLA’s baseball team. Liz Buxbaum, the girl he’s always loved, works for the university’s athletic department, taking photos and video of the team for social media, which means that maybe he can have a second chance at love, too. But since Wes left, Liz has made every effort to protect herself from ever feeling that broken again; there’s no room for love, because she doesn’t believe in it anymore. Or she doesn’t want to. This second-chance sports romance includes fake dates, quippy and quirky best friends, real heartache, and the sweet ache of first love. The clever dialogue keeps readers from drowning in the main characters’ emotional push-and-pull. Reading the first novel isn’t necessary for appreciating this one, although knowing the full history between Wes and Liz will only add to the ache and longing readers feel from and for them. Main characters are cued white.
A worthy second-chance romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665947138
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Part cautionary tale, part juicy love story, this will appeal to action and adventure fans who aren't yet sick of the genre.
A dystopic thriller joins the crowded shelves but doesn't distinguish itself.
Juliette was torn from her home and thrown into an asylum by The Reestablishment, a militaristic regime in control since an environmental catastrophe left society in ruins. Juliette’s journal holds her tortured thoughts in an attempt to repress memories of the horrific act that landed her in a cell. Mysteriously, Juliette’s touch kills. After months of isolation, her captors suddenly give her a cellmate—Adam, a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Adam, it turns out, is immune to her deadly touch. Unfortunately, he’s a soldier under orders from Warner, a power-hungry 19-year-old. But Adam belongs to a resistance movement; he helps Juliette escape to their stronghold, where she finds that she’s not the only one with superhuman abilities. The ending falls flat as the plot devolves into comic-book territory. Fast-paced action scenes convey imminent danger vividly, but there’s little sense of a broader world here. Overreliance on metaphor to express Juliette’s jaw-dropping surprise wears thin: “My mouth is sitting on my kneecaps. My eyebrows are dangling from the ceiling.” For all of her independence and superpowers, Juliette never moves beyond her role as a pawn in someone else’s schemes.
Part cautionary tale, part juicy love story, this will appeal to action and adventure fans who aren't yet sick of the genre. (Science fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-208548-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
SEEN & HEARD
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