For another look at a teen making tough choices as an outsider in her own country, pair with Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does My...
“[T]here are only two types of people who spend their Friday nights in high school at home—Pakistani Muslim girls and future serial killers.”
Although Nina Khan was born and raised in small-town Deer Hook, N.Y., and has never visited her parents’ homeland, she must adhere to their rigid cultural and religious beliefs, including no sleepovers, alcohol or dating. With dark skin, a wide bottom and an overabundance of body hair that makes her a “skunk girl,” what are her chances of dating in the predominantly fair-skinned, closed-minded town anyway? But when Italian Asher transfers to her high school, she dreams of romance for the first time. In this debut, episodic novel, rife with smart, self-deprecating humor and set in the 1990s just as a phenomenon known as e-mail is gaining interest, Nina searches for identity and emerging independence while accepting the reality of her home life.
For another look at a teen making tough choices as an outsider in her own country, pair with Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does My Head Look Big in This? (2007). (Historical fiction. YA)Pub Date: April 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-374-37011-4
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny, hopeful, foulmouthed, sexy and tear-jerking, this winning romance will captivate teen and adult readers alike.
Awkward, prickly teens find deep first love in 1980s Omaha.
Eleanor and Park don’t meet cute; they meet vexed on the school bus, trapped into sitting together by a dearth of seats and their low social status. Park, the only half-Korean fan of punk and New Wave at their high school, is by no means popular, but he benefits from his family’s deep roots in their lower-middle-class neighborhood. Meanwhile, Eleanor’s wildly curly red mane and plus-sized frame would make her stand out even if she weren’t a new student, having just returned to her family after a year of couch-surfing following being thrown out by her odious drunkard of a stepfather, Richie. Although both teens want only to fade into the background, both stand out physically and sartorially, arming themselves with band T-shirts (Park) and menswear from thrift stores (Eleanor). Despite Eleanor’s resolve not to grow attached to anything, and despite their shared hatred for clichés, they fall, by degrees, in love. Through Eleanor and Park’s alternating voices, readers glimpse the swoon-inducing, often hilarious aspects of first love, as well as the contrast between Eleanor’s survival of grim, abuse-plagued poverty and Park’s own imperfect but loving family life.
Funny, hopeful, foulmouthed, sexy and tear-jerking, this winning romance will captivate teen and adult readers alike. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01257-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
IN THE NEWS
A sweet romance of introspection and renewal.
Two rival hockey players in Pennsylvania learn from each other—on and off the field.
Evelyn Feltzer, a white-presenting 17-year-old field hockey captain and goalie at Heathclef Prep, has a plan: Get a sports scholarship to attend Duke University (where she’d be a legacy student) and then go on to play professionally, fulfilling a promise she made to her late mother. There’s one thing standing in the way, though—her academic record isn’t stellar; but she’s eligible for a scholarship if her team wins the high school nationals. The situation intensifies when Heathclef’s rival, the Van Darian girls’ boarding school, brings in a new forward, a professional recruit from New Mexico named Rosa Alvarez. Beautiful, agile Rosa, who’s Chicana, distracts Evelyn so completely that Van Darian wins the homecoming game, putting Heathclef’s position in peril and devastating Evelyn. After Van Darian fans trash Heathclef’s playing field, Evelyn confronts Rosa—but the girls end up practicing together, forming a friendship that leads to romance. Evelyn begins to question whether fulfilling the promise to her mother is her only path forward. The story’s exploration of identity throughout is refreshing and realistic. The girls delve into their budding relationship, helping each other distinguish their true selves from the expectations they face. As Rosa observes, “You don’t have to be anything…Just follow your heart and be open to whatever.”
A sweet romance of introspection and renewal. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593898451
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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