Natalie hopes a summer Shakespeare program will offer stability, but instead, her belief in rumors of a theater ghost suggests her schizophrenic delusions may be worsening.
A recent delusional episode resulted in the white teen’s diagnosis of schizophrenia, from which her grandmother also suffers. Initially, Natalie is determined to use medication and other treatment techniques to avoid future schizophrenic episodes. But she also longs to be a carefree teen, prompting her concealment of her diagnosis from her new (apparently mostly white) theater friends—resulting in alcohol consumption and missed medication doses. Consequently, Natalie’s increasingly fearful reactions to rumors of a theater ghost seem plausibly related to her mental health diagnosis. Readers will struggle with Natalie as she evaluates her own mental stability, especially as her grandmother’s intensifying delusions add terror to the schizophrenia diagnosis. Unfortunately, a less interesting storyline involving a dull romance with Lucas, the handsome white boy Natalie recognizes from the mental health treatment facility, soon takes center stage. Her declarations of falling in love seem unfounded and premature. A potentially interesting reveal gets lost in several other characters’ abruptly shifting attitudes and behaviors—especially the grandmother’s sudden delivery of sage advice about the power of love. That this Savannah, Georgia–set tale seems to have no significant African-American characters is a real shame.
Interesting questions about mental health and self-awareness are sacrificed in favor of a too-tidy happily-ever-after ending and poorly realized setting . (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0356-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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An emotionally engaging closer that fumbles in its final moments.
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Lara Jean prepares for college and a wedding.
Korean-American Lara Jean is finally settled into a nice, complication-free relationship with her white boyfriend, Peter. But things don’t stay simple for long. When college acceptance letters roll in, Peter and Lara Jean discover they’re heading in different directions. As the two discuss the long-distance thing, Lara Jean’s widower father is making a major commitment: marrying the neighbor lady he’s been dating. The whirlwind of a wedding, college visits, prom, and the last few months of senior year provides an excellent backdrop for this final book about Lara Jean. The characters ping from event to event with emotions always at the forefront. Han further develops her cast, pushing them to new maturity and leaving few stones unturned. There’s only one problem here, and it’s what’s always held this series back from true greatness: Peter. Despite Han’s best efforts to flesh out Peter with abandonment issues and a crummy dad, he remains little more than a handsome jock. Frankly, Lara Jean and Peter may have cute teen chemistry, but Han's nuanced characterizations have often helped to subvert typical teen love-story tropes. This knowing subversion is frustratingly absent from the novel's denouement.
An emotionally engaging closer that fumbles in its final moments. (Romance. 14-17)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3048-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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Many teen novels touch on similar themes, but few do it so memorably.
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Two struggling teens develop an unlikely relationship in a moving exploration of grief, suicide and young love.
Violet, a writer and member of the popular crowd, has withdrawn from her friends and from school activities since her sister died in a car accident nine months earlier. Finch, known to his classmates as "Theodore Freak," is famously impulsive and eccentric. Following their meeting in the school bell tower, Finch makes it his mission to re-engage Violet with the world, partially through a school project that sends them to offbeat Indiana landmarks and partially through simple persistence. (Violet and Finch live, fortunately for all involved, in the sort of romantic universe where his throwing rocks at her window in the middle of the night comes off more charming than stalker-esque.) The teens alternate narration chapter by chapter, each in a unique and well-realized voice. Finch's self-destructive streak and suicidal impulses are never far from the surface, and the chapters he narrates are interspersed with facts about suicide methods and quotations from Virginia Woolf and poet Cesare Pavese. When the story inevitably turns tragic, a cast of carefully drawn side characters brings to life both the pain of loss and the possibility of moving forward, though some notes of hope are more believable than others.
Many teen novels touch on similar themes, but few do it so memorably. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-75588-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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