As a dance-filled coming-of-age tale, the story keeps the beat, but as a romance, it stumbles.
“Geeky loner” Rick Gutiérrez convinces his romantically uninterested crush to spend a summer perfecting their salsa-dancing skills in Cuba.
When motherless Rick’s first-and-only girlfriend dumps him on his 16th birthday, the lolcat-video entrepreneur dubbed “That Cat Guy” by his classmates decides to take more risks. He meets the beautiful, salsa-dancing Ana Cabrera and joins her at a New York City salsa school in hopes of scoring a date. A few months later, half-Cuban, half-German Rick has progressed to a mediocre casino dancer but is still just friends with Ana. When Ana suffers a tragedy, Rick impulsively suggests they visit his dead mother’s relatives in Havana in order to reconnect to his roots and immerse themselves in dancing salsa. Improbably, off Rick and Ana go to Cuba, where living conditions are quite different than they imagined. Rick’s teen cousin Yosvany is a player who keeps flirting with Ana and pointing out the ways Rick lacks game, but at least he introduces them to Pablo, an accomplished dance instructor. The debut author is a veteran salsa teacher, so it’s unsurprising the dance descriptions and detailed music references are authentic, but several of the plot points prove beyond belief, such as how the teens are allowed to go to Cuba to begin with, not to mention eventually involve themselves in dangerous Communist-subverting activities.
As a dance-filled coming-of-age tale, the story keeps the beat, but as a romance, it stumbles. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242283-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Titillated teens will pass this guilty pleasure on to their friends, but they may advise skimming all but a few memorable...
Perhaps inspired by V.C. Andrews' infamous Flowers in the Attic, British author Suzuma spins a tawdry tale of an illicit brother-and-sister relationship.
Lochan and Maya, the oldest of five siblings, narrate in alternating chapters. Their mother, an alcoholic, neglects the children, instead spending her time and money on clothing, drinking and dates with her boss. Caring for their younger siblings is chaotic and draining, a fact impressed upon readers both by heavy-handed exposition and by repetitive food disputes, bickering and belligerent outbursts from angry, defiant and reckless middle child Kit, by far the best-developed character. Over 100 pages pass before Lochan and Maya discover their feelings for each other. Though the author spares no cliché in evoking their tragically star-crossed love (Lochan even laments aloud, "How can something so wrong feel so right?"), she expertly manipulates tension, creating both pathos ("I can think of no other kind of love that is so totally rejected") and urgency ("Being with you every day but not being able to do anything...[i]t's like this cancer growing inside my body"), then delivering sizzling, multi-page frenzies of kissing, touching and more in the pair's rare moments of privacy.
Titillated teens will pass this guilty pleasure on to their friends, but they may advise skimming all but a few memorable scenes. (Fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: June 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1995-7
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
Mafiosa Rosa is rarely likable, but this tough survivor takes control of her own life, determined not to be controlled,...
A shape-shifting Mafia capo insists on romance amid dark family mysteries.
The death of her sister and aunt in Arcadia Awakens (2012) have left Rosa Alcantara the head of a Sicilian Mafia clan. Her love affair with Alessandro, capo of the rival Carnevare family, makes both of them vulnerable to vicious members of their own families. It's bad enough that they lead different Cosa Nostra clans, but their magical abilities are at odds as well. The Alcantaras become giant snakes, while the Carnevares become panthers, leopards and lions. Rosa mostly ignores the family business while she investigates the brutal rape she endured a year and a half before. Her investigations reveal unsettling truths: Nothing in her pre-Mafia past, neither the rape nor the death of her father, is unrelated to Cosa Nostra. Her own family has engaged in heinous crimes against her and the rest of the Mafia. A climactic battle—partially described in a six-page cellphone conversation between Rosa and Alessandro—ties up a few loose ends and leaves the rest for the next volume.
Mafiosa Rosa is rarely likable, but this tough survivor takes control of her own life, determined not to be controlled, assaulted, lied to or—quite literally—devoured . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-200608-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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