Reluctant readers will enjoy exploring Leo’s loyalty to his family and ideals, strong threads woven through the fabric of...
After his mother departs on a six-month tour of duty, 16-year-old Leo, his father, and his younger siblings, Jack and Reina, are left to cope.
Leo is on his way becoming an Eagle Scout, he wants to join the Summer Youth Police Academy, and he is committed to embodying the principles of the Scout Oath. His workaholic father, who is hardly ever home, sees him as the reliable one and gives Leo too much responsibility for the care of his siblings. Leo has always vowed to have Jack’s back, but when the 13-year-old starts acting out and gets in serious trouble, Leo finds it hard to hold up his end of the bargain. He becomes close to Zen, a girl who belongs to their support group for families of deployed military personnel, but that relationship is later put at risk. Leo must figure out how to help his brother while also pursuing his own dreams. In her heartfelt debut novel that explores the challenges facing military families left at home, Van effectively utilizes verse to impeccably convey the feelings of sadness, anger, displacement, and lack of belonging of young people on the brink of adulthood. Leo’s father is a Cuban immigrant, and Zen is Korean-American; other characters are assumed white.
Reluctant readers will enjoy exploring Leo’s loyalty to his family and ideals, strong threads woven through the fabric of this emotional story. (Verse novel. 12-18)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5383-8262-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Exhilarating, nonstop fun.
A murder on The Escape Game, a popular reality TV show, puts the next round of contestants at risk—can they all get out alive?
The previous season of the show, in which groups of teens race to get through escape rooms, ended in disaster when Sierra Angelos and her team discovered another player lying dead in a coffin—her older sister, Alicia. But the network and ruthless executive producer determine that the show will go on. Prickly, olive-skinned Sierra, whom some suspect of murder, is returning—and she’s determined to find the killer. Her new team includes math whiz Carter Kelly, who’s Black; home-schooled, white-presenting Beck Matheson, who designs his own escape rooms and is trans; and Aditya Parvesh, who’s cued South Asian, has a way with words, and was pushed into auditioning by his movie star mother. At first, Team Helsing struggles to gel, but the teens’ shared desire to prove themselves makes them a formidable powerhouse—even if they’re hiding some of their true goals from one another. As clues to the killer’s identity start appearing, the players must try to make it to the finale before someone else becomes the next victim. This thrilling whodunit moves at a page-turning pace; the occasional reveals for the main mystery are well balanced with the tighter sequences of solving the escape rooms. The narration rotates among the central cast, allowing readers to empathize with each character in turn and be privy to even more intrigue.
Exhilarating, nonstop fun. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217006120
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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