A moving and elegant story of first love and family.
Sahar, a teenage lesbian living in Iran, contemplates desperate measures when she learns the girl she loves is marrying a man.
Sahar has loved Nasrin since childhood. Nasrin swears she loves Sahar back, but she is rich, spoiled and unwilling to disappoint her mother, a combination that spells tragedy to readers even though Sahar remains poignantly hopeful. When Nasrin’s family announces her engagement to a doctor, Sahar is heartsick. Through her gay cousin Ali’s underground network, Sahar meets a woman named Parveen. Upon learning that Parveen is transsexual, Sahar hatches a scheme to transition herself, certain that Nasrin would marry her if she were a man. Gentle, unintrusive exposition clues readers into Iran’s political and social realities, and the characters’ choices about how to wear head scarves or how openly to talk about same-sex attractions are refreshingly and believably diverse. So too are the members of the transgender support group Sahar attends: The group has a broad enough range of experience that readers never get the message that transition itself is a mistake, only that it is the wrong choice for Sahar. Each character and relationship is kindly and carefully drawn, from Sahar’s sad, shut-down Baba to reckless, twinkling Ali.
A moving and elegant story of first love and family. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61620-251-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.
After surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself.
Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself; her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out; her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply; and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her—who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves—Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she "like-likes" but who had pined for Ellis instead. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a "semifamous" local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way "girls who write their pain on their bodies" scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together.
This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-93471-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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