A tense and unsettling portrait of a family torn apart by a predator in its midst.
A teenage girl runs away from her home to escape her stepfather in this revised edition of a YA novel by the author.
Fifteen-year-old Maggie tells her mom she’s going away on a weekend camping trip with a friend, but really, she’s planning to run away. The problem is Richard, her mother’s new husband, whom they recently moved in with. Her mother, Peg, thinks Richard is a sweetheart—though she realizes he’s a bit controlling, and she doesn’t like that he’s started drinking a lot since losing his job. She can’t understand why Maggie has been so difficult lately. What Peg doesn’t realize is that Richard has been touching Maggie inappropriately. Maggie gets on a bus to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania—a place she seems to have chosen because she saw its name on an old school notebook of her mother’s—and she’s unknowingly following in Peg’s own footsteps when she ran away as a teenager. Maggie has taken Peg’s journal with her, which leads her to discover things about her mother’s past that she never suspected. Meanwhile, back at home, Richard tells Peg that Maggie has been behaving suggestively toward him. “I hate to have to tell you this,” he says, “but, she was blatantly coming on to me. I had to physically push her away from me. She started to attack me then, and I had to restrain her.” Will Peg believe him, or will she discover the truth in time to save her daughter from making the same mistakes she once made? The point of view alternates between Maggie and Peg, revealing how blind Peg is to Richard’s behavior: “He only had one beer tonight, and he’ll drink less when our financial issues are resolved. There’s really no reason to give up on our marriage. He’s very loving and tender, and he is doing his best to be a father to the girls, even when Maggie’s been awful.” The novel takes a while to get going, and several of the chapters seem superfluous to the plot. That said, the book realistically portrays an instance of sexual abuse and how one parent might be blind to it—even if that blindness is somewhat willful.
A tense and unsettling portrait of a family torn apart by a predator in its midst.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9855270-3-7
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Durare Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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