Fans of Brashares’ Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series will enjoy this romantic tale of cultural exchange on the...
In Akyil’s debut young-adult romance, American teenager Rachel Guo learns about love and friendship on a summer trip to the west coast of Turkey.
Seventeen-year-old Rachel isn’t looking forward to spending her summer slinging coffee in Olympia, Wash., any more than 17-year-old Aylin is looking forward to spending her summer in Didim, Turkey, a tiny resort town on the Aegean Sea. Fortunately for both, Rachel accepts an invitation for an all-expenses-paid trip to spend four weeks learning about Turkish culture, language and family structures. Aylin’s large extended family is eager to welcome an American into their home to teach their traditions and indulge with lavish cuisine; hopefully they can improve their English, too. Rachel learns that Turkish teenage girls and boys may hang out together at underage clubs, but they can’t openly kiss, hold hands or engage in foreplay; courtship often remains secret until both parties are sure they’re in love. Rachel reveals that her father, the son of Chinese immigrants, impregnated her mother out of wedlock, and Aylin judges Rachel’s loyalty and morality based on her parents’ mistake. But when Aylin’s boyfriend, Emre, tries to seduce Rachel, can Aylin put aside her prejudices before everything spirals even further out of control? Akyil’s charming, well-developed female characters are the foundations of this novel. The male players, however, are illustrated with one-dimensional characterization; they’re either stereotyped as good (those who adhere to cultural tradition) or bad (those who adopt more “Westernized” behavior). This is due, in part, to the facile prose and simple structure of the novel. Although the book reads as if it were written by a precocious teenager, the plot is swift and sure. The epistolary effects of emails and texts—complete with Internet jargon and teen slang—should keep the story contemporary and relatable to young-adult readers, and the book’s ending begs for a sequel.
Fans of Brashares’ Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series will enjoy this romantic tale of cultural exchange on the western shores of Turkey.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463740115
Page Count: 300
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)
In the three years following Eden’s brutal rape by her brother’s best friend, Kevin, she descends into anger, isolation, and promiscuity.
Eden’s silence about the assault is cemented by both Kevin’s confident assurance that if she tells anyone, “No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever,” and a chillingly believable death threat. For the remainder of Eden’s freshman year, she withdraws from her family and becomes increasingly full of hatred for Kevin and the world she feels failed to protect her. But when a friend mentions that she’s “reinventing” herself, Eden embarks on a hopeful plan to do the same. She begins her sophomore year with new clothes and friendly smiles for her fellow students, which attract the romantic attentions of a kind senior athlete. But, bizarrely, Kevin’s younger sister goes on a smear campaign to label Eden a “totally slutty disgusting whore,” which sends Eden back toward self-destruction. Eden narrates in a tightly focused present tense how she withdraws again from nearly everyone and attempts to find comfort (or at least oblivion) through a series of nearly anonymous sexual encounters. This self-centeredness makes her relationships with other characters feel underdeveloped and even puzzling at times. Absent ethnic and cultural markers, Eden and her family and classmates are likely default white.
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4935-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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