A classic SF trope, well rendered.
Jacobs and Birnbach’s YA time-traveling adventure combines SF and elements of classic caper and heist stories.
Tori is a normal teenager thrust into the middle of her parents’ ongoing divorce. Adding to the trauma, it just so happens to be the dawn of the Covid-19 pandemic, too. As Tori’s entire routine is upended by the divorce and the outbreak, she is forced to ride the crisis out in both New York City and the Boston area (where she’ll be moving with her mother), two places in near-lockdown. While packing her things for the big move, Tori answers a phone call from a New York Times reporter—the strangely named “Tobias Guildersleeve”—looking for Tori’s father. Eavesdropping, she soon discovers a family secret: Her grandfather, a once-successful jeweler named Victor Gold, was caught stealing one of the world’s most precious gems, the “Desert Sun.” He served time for the heist, and the resulting fallout tore her father’s family asunder. Shortly after the call from the reporter, Tori mysteriously awakens in her own room, but not in her own time. She’s been taken all the way back to March 1980, where she meets a teen named Bobby. As if this weren’t trippy enough, she knows this Bobby—it’s her father as an adolescent. In order to save her father’s future (and therefore her own), she must work with him, facing the peril of highly dangerous criminals to recover the Desert Sun and set things right for her family. Fans of classic time-travel narratives will find much to love here. Though the concept of going back into the past to meet younger versions of family members has been done, Jacobs and Birnbach’s characters are distinctive enough to keep this work feeling fresh. Tori’s unique humor—she refers to summer camp as “New York with mosquitoes”—and the author’s smooth prose make this solid, lighter SF yarn a delight.
A classic SF trope, well rendered.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Both entertaining and well-written; demands and holds readers’ attention.
A duology opener that revisits the world of Divergent (2011).
Beatrice “Tris” Prior is Divergent. But before she can select Dauntless, her Choosing Ceremony is interrupted by a group of factionless rebels, and her good friend is killed. Amid the chaos, Tris sees Evelyn, the wife of Abnegation leader Marcus Eaton—but Evelyn supposedly died years ago. And, shockingly, she’s an Amity woman who’s holding a gun. Tris doesn’t tell anyone, even her father, when he later questions her. Her brother, Caleb, chooses Erudite—the faction that’s most critical toward the Abnegation and their practices—and Tris feels pressured to stay in Abnegation. But when her father tries to erase her memories, she knows she’s unsafe. Tris’ mother helps her escape to the factionless, where Tris meets Four, a Dauntless boy. Their relationship shows her that she was right to leave Abnegation—and that maybe the rebels are correct to want the death of the faction system. As Tris becomes friends with the other “faction failures,” she realizes that no faction is as it seems, and that power is a corrupting influence they can’t escape. This exciting work revisits beloved characters, offering a new understanding of them and of what happens when we stand up and ask questions. Returning fans and those new to this world will appreciate the witty banter, slow-burn romance, and heartache stemming from betrayal and complicated familial love. The leads are cued white.
Both entertaining and well-written; demands and holds readers’ attention. (Dystopian. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063462595
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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