Just don’t think.
When Candy is literally stolen from her snooty New England boarding school, she knows something the kidnappers don’t: her rock-star dad is not going to ransom her.
The white teen’s mother’s been dead for years, but her father, aging rock star Wade Rex, never stepped in to fill the void, instead first fobbing her off on her emotionally distant grandmother and then dumping her in boarding school. So rather than trying to escape her kidnappers, Candy allies with them. From the outset, Candy’s appallingly privileged narration grates. Despite her “poor little rich girl” back story, she fails to ingratiate herself with readers. She is terrified of black kidnapper Jamal, scarred and with “half-dead” eyes, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to white Levon, of the luminous green eyes, soft hands, and “creamy and smooth” skin. The situation is also wildly implausible, starting with Candy’s ability to get her HD mini handheld camera out of her back pocket and use it unnoticed while wearing a ski mask on backwards and with her hands taped. Candy and Levon easily become partners in the deal when Jamal departs after an unlikely confrontation. Levon has reasons for his actions that Candy thinks are valid, and she has no fondness for—really, only one happy memory of—her father. For readers who can get past Candy’s unpleasant self-presentation and the narrative’s equally unpleasant stereotyping and who are interested in escapism, this will do the trick. Right down to the last scene readers will find enough implied steaminess, threatening violence, and sob stories to make pulses race.
Just don’t think. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3888-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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