An adventure story for reluctant readers driven by high winds of melodrama.
A quick outing in a borrowed boat becomes a terror-soaked nightmare for a group of teens.
Cast into short bursts of confessional free verse, the tale opens with four young people meeting on a Florida beach and setting out for a joyride—which turns deadly with the onset of a sudden squall that leaves one dead and the others stranded on a deserted island with virtually no supplies. As they take up the narrative oars, each in turn reveals a distinctive mix of traits and histories—Nate is moody and serious; his buddy Jay hides the emotional wreckage of childhood abuse beneath the facade of a carefree party boy; Brooke is the outgoing one; and Eva, her friend from back home in Pennsylvania, though timid in company, turns out to be the most resolute and heroic of all. The plot ends on a wave of narrow squeaks as, after weeks with no sign of rescue, the survivors set off on a bamboo raft…only to be driven back to the island by a big shark and, later, another ferocious storm. Emminizer cuts her debut novel off in an abrupt ending that may bring some readers up short but will at least spark discussion about how things will turn out. The characters are all cued as white except for Eva, who is Latinx.
An adventure story for reluctant readers driven by high winds of melodrama. (Verse novel. 13-16)Pub Date: April 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5383-8509-8
Page Count: 200
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2020
In the end, it’s more liberating than oppressive, with bits of humor and a jubilant pageant takeover by beauty rebels to...
In a small Texas town, a confident fat girl confronts new challenges to her self-esteem.
At age 16, Willowdean—her mother calls her Dumplin’—has a good sense of herself. She’s uninterested in Mom’s raison d’être, the Clover City Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant, which annually takes over the town and Will’s own house. Mom won once and now runs the pageant, dieting to fit her old dress and pressuring Will to diet too. Will doesn’t. She mourns her beloved aunt Lucy, a second parent to her who died six months ago, and simmers with pleasure over a new, hot, sort-of-boyfriend. However, his touch makes Will panic with newfound insecurity. She loses him, loses her old best friend, gains new social-outsider buddies (a familiar trope)—and finds triumph somewhere amid Dolly Parton, drag queens, breaking pageant rules, and repairing relationships. The text refreshingly asserts that thinness is no requirement for doing and deserving good things, that weight loss isn’t a cure-all, and that dieting doesn’t work anyway. The plot arc, amazingly, avoids the all-too-common pitfall of having its fat protagonist lose weight. Unfortunately, Murphy loses her step and undermines her main point in the mournful, cringeworthy details of Lucy’s death and life, which are blamed on extreme fatness rather than unfairness.
In the end, it’s more liberating than oppressive, with bits of humor and a jubilant pageant takeover by beauty rebels to crown this unusual book about a fat character. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-232718-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
Fans of the familiar will find this an unchallenging goth-and-glitter pleasure
What with the race to save Jace from the new Big Bad, wonderful secondary characters get short shrift.
Clary's long-lost brother Sebastian, raised to be an evil overlord by their father (and Jace's foster father), has kidnapped Jace. While the many young (or young-appearing) protagonists want Jace back, only Clary swoons in constant self-absorption; her relationship angst, resolved two books ago, can't carry volume five the way it did earlier installments. The heroic, metaphysical and, yes, romantic travails of Simon, the daylight-walking, Jewish vampire with the Mark of Cain, would have made a more solid core for a second trilogy then Clary's continuing willingness to put her boyfriend ahead of the survival of the entire planet. The narrative zips from one young protagonist to another, as they argue with the werewolf council, summon angels and demons, fight the "million little paper cuts" of homophobia, and always, always negotiate sexual tension thick enough to cut with an iratze. Only the Clary perspective drags, focusing on her wardrobe instead of her character development, while the faux-incestuous vibes of earlier volumes give way to the real thing. The action once again climaxes in a tense, lush battle sequence just waiting for digital cinematic treatment. Clever prose is sprinkled lightly with Buffy-esque quips ("all the deadly sins....Greed, envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry, lust, and spanking").
Fans of the familiar will find this an unchallenging goth-and-glitter pleasure . (Fantasy. 13-16)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1686-4
Page Count: 544
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
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