Junior’s keen cartoons sprinkle the pages as his fluid narration deftly mingles raw feeling with funny, sardonic insight.
Alexie nimbly blends sharp wit with unapologetic emotion in his first foray into young-adult literature.
Fourteen-year-old Junior is a cartoonist and bookworm with a violent but protective best friend Rowdy. Soon after they start freshman year, Junior boldly transfers from a school on the Spokane reservation to one in a tiny white town 22 miles away. Despite his parents’ frequent lack of gas money (they’re a “poor-ass family”), racism at school and many crushing deaths at home, he manages the year. Rowdy rejects him, feeling betrayed, and their competing basketball teams take on mammoth symbolic proportions. The reservation’s poverty and desolate alcoholism offer early mortality and broken dreams, but Junior’s knowledge that he must leave is rooted in love and respect for his family and the Spokane tribe. He also realizes how many other tribes he has, from “the tribe of boys who really miss . . . their best friends” to “the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers.”
Junior’s keen cartoons sprinkle the pages as his fluid narration deftly mingles raw feeling with funny, sardonic insight. (Fiction. YA)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-316-01368-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Seventeen-year-old Chuy dies in the opening scene of this view from beyond; thereafter the story is told by his ghost, “invisible and touchable as light.” Stabbed three times after commenting on a guy’s yellow shoes in the restroom of Club Estrella, Chuy never gets to dance with his friend Rachel. Instead, “like a balloon in the wind,” he floats around town observing the life he’s left. He meets and falls in love with Crystal, who has committed suicide, helps a dead homeless man, flies in formation with some geese, and even takes in a Raiders game. Chuy realizes that he’ll soon be heading for the afterlife but is grateful for the life he had. The ghosts offer no inside information on the big questions: Do we come back? Does heaven exist? How does the Almighty decide who lives and dies? Soto writes with a touch as light as Chuy’s ghost and with humor, wonderment, and a generosity toward life. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-15-204774-3
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
A great read offering entertainment, encouragement, and plenty to reflect upon.
A gay teen contends with time travel—and homophobia through the decades.
All Cuban American Luis wants is to be prom king with his boyfriend, but tiny upstate New York boarding school Antic Springs Academy, with its strict, Christian code of conduct, won’t even let them hold hands in public. After a disastrous prom committee meeting at which his attempt to make the event welcoming of queer couples is rejected by the principal, Luis gets quite literally knocked into the past—specifically, ASA in the year 1985. There he meets Chaz, a Black student who attended the school at the same time as Luis’ parents and who died under mysterious circumstances after being bullied for his sexuality. Luis now faces a choice between changing the past to help Chaz and preserving his own future existence. Fortunately, he has Ms. Silverthorn, a Black English teacher and beloved mentor, who offers him support in both timelines. The narrative explores the impacts of homophobia and being closeted, remaining optimistic without shying away from the more brutal aspects. Luis is a multifaceted character with an engaging voice whose flaws are confronted and examined throughout. The solid pacing and pleasant, fluid prose make this a page-turner. Luis’ boyfriend is cued as Chinese American, and his best friend is nonbinary; there is some diversity in ethnicity and sexuality in background characters, although the school is predominantly White.
A great read offering entertainment, encouragement, and plenty to reflect upon. (author's note) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0710-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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