An interesting premise that doesn’t deliver.
A 17-year-old impulsively sets out on an adventure of self-discovery.
Tom doesn’t know if he’s gay, but he’s questioning his sexuality, and that’s enough for him to leave Mississauga, Ontario, and fly to Vancouver without telling anyone, including his parents. After all, it’s 1990, and the Gay Games are taking place there. Tom is sure he can stay with his Uncle Fred. Soon after arriving, Tom meets Dwayne, who takes him to his uncle’s house—and, having developed a quick crush on Tom, gives him his number. Dwayne’s volunteering at the games, and Uncle Fred tells Tom that if he wants to stay with him, he has to help out there as well. So, the boys, who both seem to be White, end up spending more time together. Populated with too many side characters to easily track, the book continues the countdown to the international sporting event with religious fanatics protesting and the boys’ feelings developing rapidly. Unfortunately, the many characters’ individual personalities fail to shine through, making the shifting points of view confusing; even protagonist Tom lacks charm and interesting traits. The book attempts to evoke nostalgia through period details, but the stiff dialogue does little to engage readers' interest.
An interesting premise that doesn’t deliver. (map) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781459417236
Page Count: 280
Publisher: James Lorimer
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Evil that is impossibly difficult to comprehend and filled with word-images that will leave readers gasping. The author’s...
Gerta didn’t know she was Jewish until she and her father were taken for transport by the Nazis.
When Bergen-Belsen is liberated, Gerta and the other survivors are ill, skeletal, dying, or sunk in madness, and they have no homes to which they can return. Relating the events that led her there, she tells of a seemingly carefree life in Würzburg with her musician father and German gentile stepmother, an opera singer who is also Gerta’s voice teacher. But they were living with false identification papers, and their lives become ever more withdrawn. She has fleeting visions of her early childhood in Köln, of her mother, and of Kristallnacht. The cattle-car journey to Theresienstadt is only the beginning of days, weeks, months, years filled with unspeakable horrors in the “intricacies of the Nazi web…the animalization of human souls.” Then comes Auschwitz, where her father is gassed, then Bergen-Belsen, typhus, and, finally, a kind of awakening to her own humanity. Later she covertly enters British-occupied Palestine, Eratz Yisrael, and builds a life there. Stamper spares readers nothing. Everything that Gerta witnesses or experiences really happened in the hell that was the Holocaust, including the further humiliations in its aftermath, a rarely told part of the story. The text is on pale, sepia-toned paper with dark, eerie illustrations in the same tones, reminiscent of real drawings produced by camp inmates.
Evil that is impossibly difficult to comprehend and filled with word-images that will leave readers gasping. The author’s dedication says it all, in both Hebrew and English: “Remember.” (author’s note, map, glossary, resources, acknowledgments; not seen) (Historical fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0038-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
An important, well-executed work of historical fiction.
The story of two teenagers at the end of World War II: one raised by Nazis, the other a German immigrant new to the United States.
It’s 1946, and Eva is arriving in America, a refugee from Germany. The narrative then flips to 1945. Sixteen-year-old Inge has been raised a Nazi, her doctor father a prominent figure and integral part of the concentration camps. In the aftermath of the war, Inge realizes the atrocities her father and her people were responsible for and vows to atone for the murdered innocents. These are postwar young women hoping to do right by their complicated pasts, the story alternating between their points of view. While the horrors of the Holocaust are certainly discussed, the brutal realities of postwar Germany and the gray areas between good and evil offer a lesser-seen view of World War II. Cameron slowly, delicately weaves these seemingly disparate stories into one seamless storyline. As the two merge into one, there are twists and turns and plenty of edge-of-your-seat moments, even if the pace is a little inconsistent. The grim realities will stay with readers long beyond the book; the truths shared are honest but not gratuitous. All of the main characters are White, though African American artist Augusta Savage plays a minor role, and some background characters are people of color.
An important, well-executed work of historical fiction. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35596-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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