by Steve Bloom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2016
A half-funny, half-tired novel with a fine protagonist to half-root for.
A smart-aleck teenager who yearns to escape his dilapidated New Jersey town becomes a high school escort in Bloom’s debut novel.
Brooks Rattigan—a superficial yet hardworking letter carrier’s son in his final year of high school—is desperate to attain upper-middle-class comfort. After the white teen offers to take a schoolmate’s dateless cousin to homecoming and scores over 300 bucks from the girl’s grateful parents in the process, he decides to expand his impromptu dating service to secure his path to Columbia University. Soon, Brooks is in the stand-in business, offering himself to girls from affluent families for senior year’s most important social events. Complications come in the form of two girls: Celia Lieberman, a girl with overbearing parents, and Shelby Pace, a socialite goddess. Though the setup seems entertaining enough, the narrative fails to capitalize on its promise to dissect high-class society, underserving its satirical wit in favor of high-strung melodrama. As Brooks slips deeper into the evidently all-white world of the superrich, he finds it hard to balance his demanding, college-bound life with the lies he spins to fit in. Brooks starts off a likable character, but his progressively less-than-admirable behavior is exhausting after 200 pages. And that’s halfway through the novel.
A half-funny, half-tired novel with a fine protagonist to half-root for. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1023-5
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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by Tobly McSmith ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2020
Several yards short of a touchdown.
A transgender boy starting over at a new school falls hard for a popular cheerleader with a reputation to protect in this debut.
On the first day of senior year, transgender boy Pony locks eyes with cisgender cheerleader Georgia. They both have pasts they want to leave behind. No one at Hillcrest High knows that Pony is transgender, and he intends to keep it that way. Georgia’s last boyfriend shook her trust in boys, and now she’s determined to forget him. As mutual attraction draws them together, Pony and Georgia must decide what they are willing to risk for a relationship. Pony’s best friend, Max, who is also transgender, disapproves of Pony’s choice to live stealth; this disagreement leads to serious conflict in their relationship. Meanwhile, Georgia and Pony behave as if Pony’s trans identity was a secret he was lying to her about rather than private information for him to share of his own volition. The characters only arrive at a hopeful resolution after Pony pays high physical and emotional prices. McSmith places repeated emphasis on the born-in-the-wrong-body narrative when the characters discuss trans identities. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main characters are white.
Several yards short of a touchdown. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-294317-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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by Alexandra Monir ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one.
Teens become astronauts in record time for an inaugural space mission.
After losing his family to “the greatest flood Rome has ever known,” skilled white Italian swimmer Leo Danieli would never have expected that in his darkest moment he would be drafted by the European Space Agency to attend the International Space Training Camp, where teens will train to terraform and colonize Jupiter’s moon Europa for human settlement. California native Naomi Ardalan, a second-generation Iranian-American, has also been chosen for her expertise in science and technology. During a period of violent climate change worldwide, Earth’s governments are desperate to draft teens for a space mission for which they have only a few weeks in which to prepare. Twenty-four teen finalists, many orphaned by cataclysmic natural disasters, have been chosen from all over the world to compete for this space colonization mission. Warnings come to Leo and Naomi that there is a more sinister aspect to this mission, especially after things go tragically awry with other candidates during the training. The relationship that develops between Naomi and Leo feels forced, as if their meeting necessitates speedy deployment of a romantic cliché. The use of predictable plot devices, along with the fundamentally ludicrous premise, undermines any believability that would make a reader invest in such an elaborate space journey.
The shelves are already crowded with teens-training-for-space stories; there’s no need to make room for this one. (Science fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-265894-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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