As leading-edge baby boomers turn 65, this novel in verse tracks their coming of age in 1965, a year marked by social and political unrest, racial violence and the official onset of the second-longest war in U.S. history. Readers’ guides are six white, working-class, suburban Los Angeles teens—Ziggy, Cheryl and Nancy, paired with Mickey, Don and Phil—fearing and longing for change to rock their world. Soon Phil receives his draft notice and joins the Marine Corps; Mickey joins the Navy to escape an alcoholic single dad and dead-end future; opportunist Don watches from the sidelines. Left adrift and dissatisfied, the girls start to break free of the passive role assigned to them. A kind English teacher (readers will notice parallels to Nikki Grimes’s Bronx Masquerade, 2001) helps Ziggy find her footing; Nancy discovers the anti-war and feminist movements. Interspersed with historical tidbits and individuals—recent Vietnam history, civil rights struggles, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr.—this loosely chronological collage is most effective in the letters Phil, mired in Vietnam, sends to Cheryl. Because they don’t affect the characters directly, other historical events depicted—civil rights especially—have little impact. Nonetheless, a valuable, vivid snapshot of how Vietnam shaped a generation. (historical timeline) (Historical fiction. 14 & up)
Pub Date: March 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7624-4071-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Running Press Teens
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage.
Adrian, the youngest of the Montague siblings, sails into tumultuous waters in search of answers about himself, the sudden death of his mother, and her mysterious, cracked spyglass.
On the summer solstice less than a year ago, Caroline Montague fell off a cliff in Aberdeen into the sea. When the Scottish hostel where she was staying sends a box of her left-behind belongings to London, Adrian—an anxious, White nobleman on the cusp of joining Parliament—discovers one of his mother’s most treasured possessions, an antique spyglass. She acquired it when she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck many years earlier. His mother always carried that spyglass with her, but on the day of her death, she had left it behind in her room. Although he never knew its full significance, Adrian is haunted by new questions and is certain the spyglass will lead him to the truth. Once again, Lee crafts an absorbing adventure with dangerous stakes, dynamic character growth, sharp social and political commentary, and a storm of emotion. Inseparable from his external search for answers about his mother, Adrian seeks a solution for himself, an end to his struggle with mental illness—a journey handled with hopeful, gentle honesty that validates the experiences of both good and bad days. Characters from the first two books play significant secondary roles, and the resolution ties up their loose ends. Humorous antics provide a well-measured balance with the heavier themes.
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage. (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-291601-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Roll to the beat of summer love and loss in this heartfelt debut.
Jaelyn is a 16-year-old skater whose life changes dramatically in one brief summer.
Jae is dealing with shifts in several of her relationships: There’s strain and distance between her and her best friend, Noelle, difficulties with learning to trust her dad after he’s repeatedly disappointed her, and the blooming of romance with the cute new boy, Trey. Other life changes unfold in the landscape around Jae as her Indianapolis community becomes another target for developers who come in and try to “push us out, / price everything just / outside / of our reach, / our possibility.” When she learns that her local rink, WestSide Roll, will close to make way for a brewery, Jae is overwhelmed by the grief of losing the space that allows her the most freedom to be herself, a bold Black girl. She decides to see what she can do to recapture that spirit for herself and others. Using verse, Vinson provides concise, lyrical insights into the trials of painful transitions for multiple generations held together by disappearing community havens. The book’s flow and plot are smooth and easy to follow. However, Jae’s interpersonal conflicts are unevenly developed, leaving readers unmoored thanks to some rushed resolutions.
Roll to the beat of summer love and loss in this heartfelt debut. (Verse fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593858592
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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