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
A year in the life of a Baltimore boy provides the basis for a formidable portrait of urban American life. Eleven-year-old Sam Webber, usually known as Little Sam, abruptly becomes just plain Samuel when his father disappears without a trace. Hoping he was kidnaped (abandonment is the far more devastating, though likely, explanation), Sam is traumatized further by the move his mother’s forced to make from their pristine middle-class neighborhood to a rough area of town. A closet in their new home becomes the TV room, and Sam watches rain pour in through a leaky kitchen window. Completing the transformation of Sam’s old life to new is his attendance at an unfamiliar school full of bullies, pregnant teens, and, miraculously, Greely. A black janitor at the school, Greely notices Sam’s distress—the constant hyperventilation, the nausea, his obvious fears—and befriends the boy in a way that alters him profoundly. Greely tells Sam about the civil rights movement, tosses a football with him, takes him to the Little Tavern for burgers—in short, becomes a surrogate father. Others slowly fill the shoes Sam’s father left empty: His mother’s new boyfriend Howard, sharing comic books and companionship; and Junie and Ditch, his mother’s employers at the flower shop. In Sam’s second Baltimore, a skinned, gritty version of what he once knew, he comes into his own, no longer afraid of dirty streets or gangs of kids and slowly accepting the loss of his father as he learns to depend more on himself. Although his father never returns, others love and nurture Little Sam, leading to the emergence of a Sam who is less troubled. A warming exploration of fairly routine material, made attractive by newcomer Fuqua’s depiction of city life. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-890862-02-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bancroft Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tale of forbidden love with intentional references to Shakespeare’s play, perhaps especially to its West Side Story incarnation, with a similar focus on issues of race and gangs. Julio Montague, a recent Texas transplant to Cincinnati, quickly falls for “Afroqueen” during cyber-chats on the Internet. He soon discovers his soulmate is African-American Romiette Cappelle, who coincidentally attends his high school. The two are destined to meet and fall in love, despite warnings from the local gang who strongly disapproves of their romance. After the two central players ignore several warnings, gun-wielding gang leaders kidnap them, bind them, and cast them adrift in a boat that is struck by lightning, nearly drowning them (and straining credibility). The parallels to Shakespeare’s play are often self-conscious and belabored, drawn at odd moments in the story. Still, a straightforward, uncluttered narrative will hook readers into the well-paced plot and sympathetic characters; loose ends are tied more neatly than a package, prettying up the ending by putting a happily-ever-after spin on the lovers’ fates. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-82180-8
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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