A glittery, holiday-themed, girl-meets-boy-under-less-than-usual-circumstances romance.
A Mississippi teen finds herself in a Scottish manor for the holidays under unexpected circumstances.
Dylan Leigh’s sister, Dusty, found love as a contestant on the reality show Prince in Disguise, and now Dusty is going to marry the prince! Actually, Ronan is really only a lord, as Dylan reminds everyone, but no one seems to care. Now, Dylan, Dusty, and their mother—all white—are on their way from Tupelo, Mississippi, to Ronan’s family home in the Scottish Highlands for the Christmas wedding TV special. Lucky for 16-year-old Dylan, who has spent months dodging the cameras (not so easy to do when you’re 6 feet tall), she gets to be Pippa to Dusty’s Kate, and all events leading up to the big event will be filmed for the pre-special special. Christmas vacation is ruined…until Dylan meets white, blue-eyed Eton boy Jamie, one of the groomsmen. It’s refreshing that they don’t hate-like each other, but rather sparks fly from the start: lightly at first and subsequently heavier as the story unfolds. Then the thought occurs to Dylan: what if the show’s producers are setting her up to be the star of a sequel? Dylan’s best friend, Heaven, is black; the show’s producers bring her over because everyone else is “too white,” a ploy Heaven refers to with a great deal of sarcasm.
A glittery, holiday-themed, girl-meets-boy-under-less-than-usual-circumstances romance. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6817-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
A smart, timely outing.
Two teens connect through a mysterious podcast in this sophomore effort by British author Oseman (Solitaire, 2015).
Frances Janvier is a 17-year-old British-Ethiopian head girl who is so driven to get into Cambridge that she mostly forgoes friendships for schoolwork. Her only self-indulgence is listening to and creating fan art for the podcast Universe City, “a…show about a suit-wearing student detective looking for a way to escape a sci-fi, monster-infested university.” Aled Last is a quiet white boy who identifies as “partly asexual.” When Frances discovers that Aled is the secret creator of Universe City, the two embark on a passionate, platonic relationship based on their joint love of pop culture. Their bond is complicated by Aled’s controlling mother and by Frances’ previous crush on Aled’s twin sister, Carys, who ran away last year and disappeared. When Aled’s identity is accidently leaked to the Universe City fandom, he severs his relationship with Frances, leaving her questioning her Cambridge goals and determined to win back his affection, no matter what the cost. Frances’ narration is keenly intelligent; she takes mordant pleasure in using an Indian friend’s ID to get into a club despite the fact they look nothing alike: “Gotta love white people.” Though the social-media–suffused plot occasionally lags, the main characters’ realistic relationship accurately depicts current issues of gender, race, and class.
A smart, timely outing. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-233571-5
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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