A life-affirming story of friendship, love, and faith.
A life-altering incident sets two ex–best friends on a collision course.
Best friends and next-door neighbors Hannah and Emory haven’t spoken since the fight when they both said things they can’t share and can’t take back. In alternating chapters, Emory focuses all her energies on theater and her boyfriend, Luke, while Hannah, the daughter of a pastor who is also the principal of her Christian high school, questions her faith as the result of the things Emory said to her that day. Their paths collide unexpectedly when Hannah finds Luke unresponsive at the wheel of his car late one night. Though he miraculously survives his injuries, he finds that he cannot move forward in the aftermath of the accident and turns to Hannah to confide the truth behind his near-death experience. When his story reaches a wider audience, things spiral beyond their control and the rift between Hannah and Emory threatens to grow even wider. Though Luke’s spiritual experience brings him and Hannah closer together and threatens to drive him and Emory apart, these characters are clearheaded and sympathetic, and the narrative avoids typecasting them or straying into melodrama. Emory and Luke share a notably sex-positive relationship, and Hannah experiences a forbidden attraction that neither ends in scandal nor distracts from the central plot. Hannah, Emory, and Luke are white.
A life-affirming story of friendship, love, and faith. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4847-6821-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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