A psychological thriller that’s not.
Ryan is a 17-year-old adrenaline junkie who thrives on the fear others usually wither beneath and who spends her summer days jumping from planes at her parents’ sky-diving center in the Mojave Desert.
Narrator Ryan feels her lack of fear is because she’s special and lives life on a different pulse than most, but after a near-fatal experience while on LSD, Ryan loses her inner thrill-seeker. With her relationships and sanity falling apart, Ryan finds herself having to fight the girl she has become, to fight for her life. Do the eyes that haunt her belong to one of the duppies her obeah-practicing grandmother tries to ward off, or is it psychosis? Although Ryan sees a psychiatrist, she is never definitively diagnosed, nor is there any significant attempt to mitigate the text’s unfortunate overuse of the term “crazy.” Clark both exoticizes and generalizes the biracial teen’s heritage, locating her beauty in her “combination of the smooth, dark rum of [the] Caribbean and the imperious determination of…white clouds marching over the land” and referring to Caribbean or island skin and accents with little acknowledgment of the diversity of the region. Moreover, the conflation of obeah and voodoo displays a distressing disregard for cultural accuracy. Add in stilted, sometimes jumbled prose, and the entire novel feels like a haphazard puzzle with pieces that do not fit together, especially evident in the inconsistent, sometimes downright flaky relationships.
A psychological thriller that’s not. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-51790-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters.
When star hockey player Alec Barczewski’s estranged childhood friend, Dani Collins, moves to town, they end up in a mutually beneficial fake-dating relationship that reignites old feelings.
Following her parents’ divorce, Dani and her mom move in with Dani’s hockey legend grandfather in Southview, Minnesota, where she spent a month every summer as a child and where her friendship with Alec grew. Between visits, the two were pen pals, but they eventually fell out of touch. Despite some tensions over their loss of friendship, the high school seniors reconnect. Desperate to get off Harvard’s waitlist, Dani needs another extracurricular activity, while Alec—whose reputation took a hit when a photo of him holding a bong appeared on social media—is eager to improve his tarnished image for NHL scouts. The pair strike a deal: They’ll fake date, making Alec look like a stable guy whose academically gifted girlfriend is related to hockey royalty, and in exchange, he’ll get Dani a team manager position that will catch the eye of Harvard’s admissions officers. Eventually, complicated feelings about their past, stressful family relationships, and their brewing romance boil over. Romance fans will love the deliciously tension-filled scenes between Alec and Dani, who are believable friends with heavy demands weighing on them. They feel like real teenagers, and readers will enjoy rooting for them as the well-paced story unfolds. Main characters present white.
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781665921268
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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