A heart-tugging, romanticized, mutual-savior story about homelessness and mental illness.
A young teen copes with loss by helping an older, homeless teen.
It’s late December, and 14-year-old Molly is walking around Santa Monica in the middle of the night, filling school-assigned community-service hours. Her task is counting (not helping) homeless people for the city, but a particular homeless girl captures her imagination, and their lives entwine. Molly yearns to send 18-year-old Red back to wherever her home might be, because, as Sones slowly reveals, Molly knows what it does to a family when a child disappears. Her older brother disappeared a year ago, and she blames herself. Now she feels triggered and guilty when anyone disappears, even briefly, whether it’s Red, Cristo (Molly’s new, requited crush), or Pixel, Molly’s emotional service dog whom she “sort of inherited” from her brother. Molly’s free-verse, first-person narration is smooth and fast, though weakened by exclamation marks. Red is both zany, given to dancing in public, and mentally ill—a sort of Manic Pixie Dream Disabled Girl, especially considering Molly’s conviction that Red saves her. Both Red and Molly are white; although Molly is Jewish, Christmas figures prominently, including a scary re-creation of a scene from It’s a Wonderful Life. Most of Molly’s innocent assumptions about Red’s homelessness turn out to be true, and the conclusion leans toward wish-fulfillment.
A heart-tugging, romanticized, mutual-savior story about homelessness and mental illness. (Verse fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-237028-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A 13th-century princess wants to be a warrior; the old tale's less forced than usual when set in the Mongol Empire with its legends of fighting women. Emmajin is Khubilai Khan's (fictional) oldest granddaughter, and she would rather be a soldier than a wife. Emmajin struggles to convince the Khan, but her desire is complicated by a growing attraction to the hairy visiting foreigner, Marco Polo. Emmajin's stubborn drive brings both her and Marco to combat and the novel's highlight: a lusciously described brutal engagement of cavalry, archers and elephants. Unlike much of the rest of Emmajin's tale, the battle and its profound emotional aftermath don't suffer from dry overdescription. Otherwise, Emmajin writes as if alien in her own home: She serves "Mongolian cheese," notices her cousins' "distinctive Mongolian male haircut" and rides with a "traditional Mongolian wooden saddle." With such a narrator, it's unsurprising that she finds exotic Christendom compelling, but it is a disappointment. Gorgeous cover art packages this blandly informative adventure, which is spiced with just enough blood and sexual tension to keep readers turning the pages. (Historical fiction. 12-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-73923-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Those obsessed with paranormals won't dislike anything here, but everyone else should give it a miss
Boy meets Girl. Boy turns out to have a deep—nay, otherworldly—connection to Girl despite being the loneliest member of a family of immortal, sexy, good-hearted monsters.
Newly-orphaned Brooklynite Kate Mercier is now living in Paris with her grandparents and sister. She's grateful for anything that breaks the constant tyranny of her depression, even the weird obsession she's developing with Vincent, a hot Parisian she's seen in her favorite café. Vincent is equally obsessed with Kate, but after a few dates his secret is revealed: Vincent is a revenant, driven by some mystical force to give his life to save others again and again, constantly reborn as an 18 year old with rippling "rock-hard abdominal muscles." Along with his revenant family (one father figure, several extremely sexy pseudo-brothers and a teenage girl to be Kate's friend), he rescues at-risk Parisians while fighting off the revenant's evil counterparts among the undead. Kate and Vincent are, of course, drawn to each other, miserable with despair when apart. When they are together, it takes all Vincent's willpower not to molest his beloved; readers of Twilight and its ilk know the drill. But wait! Evil is afoot, and perhaps it will spice up their love life!
Those obsessed with paranormals won't dislike anything here, but everyone else should give it a miss . (Paranormal romance. 12-14)Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-200401-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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