A well-intentioned but mediocre book about listening to your instincts.
Instead of starting her senior year, 16-year-old Caroline is planning to run away with her older boyfriend, Jake, at the end of the summer.
To help finance their move, Caroline gets a job in the gift shop of the local aquarium, where she meets Georgia, one of the summer camp counselors. Georgia and Caroline are heading in opposite directions—Caroline may be leaving high school before graduation, and Georgia (reluctantly) takes weekly practice SAT tests and has annotated her college guidebook—but they quickly become friends. As their friendship grows and as Caroline’s plans with Jake start to solidify, Caroline begins to question what she actually wants—to stay or to go. Van Name’s debut is a fun read written in a comfortable, conversational style, but it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of depth. Set against a default-white suburban neighborhood, the only two options presented for Caroline are leaving with Jake or following her parents’ plans of completing school and going to college, and those choices are treated without nuance. Caroline’s relationship with Jake is mostly well-presented, but his intentions are unclear, as are her actual feelings about how they spend their time together (she seems to have sex with him more out of expectation than desire). Her relationship with Georgia, by contrast, is sweet and well-developed.
A well-intentioned but mediocre book about listening to your instincts. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7703-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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