A successful story of a young woman’s journey through grief.
In this YA coming-of-age novel, a teenage girl who’s lost her best friend must learn how to open her heart again.
With sharp prose and unsentimental language, Alexander (Love and Other Unknown Variables, 2014) invites readers into the world of high schooler Becca Hanson, a quiet loner whose closest friend, Charlotte, died six months before. Becca’s world has grown dark with grief, and she doesn’t know how to let the light back in—even when her classmates and family members try to get through her tough emotional armor. But slowly, she’s forced to lower her shields when she undertakes a project in her literature course with an interested, curious classmate, Max, that draws her into more vulnerable territory. Soon, in a tender moment, she learns that she’s able to open up and talk about her late, beloved friend when she’s in a darkened theater. That same theater soon becomes a safe haven for her in which to form a romantic relationship with Max and to start her healing process. Although the novel touches on heavy themes of death, cancer, and grief, it does so with levity: Becca is quick-witted and narrates the story with a dry, sarcastic inner monologue and rich humor. Ultimately, she finds the stage to be a place where she can draw from her deepest emotions and truest self. The story builds toward a final theatrical performance but also offers a story of how Becca comes of age and reaches a state of grace. This sequel follows characters from Alexander’s previous novel, but it stands on its own as an independent story for readers not yet familiar with the author’s punchy YA fiction. Readers will fall in love with Becca, Max, Darby, and other characters as their soft, awkward moments of adolescence resonate throughout the prose.
A successful story of a young woman’s journey through grief.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63375-323-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
PERSPECTIVES
A thrilling romance that could use more even pacing.
For the second time in her life, Leo must choose between her family and true love.
Nineteen-year-old Princess Leonie Kolburg’s royal family is bankrupt. In order to salvage the fortune they accrued before humans fled the frozen Earth 170 years ago, Leonie’s father is forcing her to participate in the Valg Season, an elaborate set of matchmaking events held to facilitate the marriages of rich and royal teens. Leo grudgingly joins in even though she has other ideas: She’s invented a water filtration system that, if patented, could provide a steady income—that is if Leo’s calculating Aunt Freja, the Captain of the ship hosting the festivities, stops blocking her at every turn. Just as Leo is about to give up hope, her long-lost love, Elliot, suddenly appears onboard three years after Leo’s family forced her to break off their engagement. Donne (Brightly Burning, 2018) returns to space, this time examining the fascinatingly twisted world of the rich and famous. Leo and her peers are nuanced, deeply felt, and diverse in terms of sexuality but not race, which may be a function of the realities of wealth and power. The plot is fast paced although somewhat uneven: Most of the action resolves in the last quarter of the book, which makes the resolutions to drawn-out conflicts feel rushed.
A thrilling romance that could use more even pacing. (Science fiction. 16-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-328-94894-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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