by Trilby Kent ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016
Truly outstanding literary moments distinguish this quiet search for identity.
Ana’s move from an isolated Mennonite colony in Bolivia to Toronto is both a culture shock and an opportunity for Ana to search for her mother, who disappeared 10 years earlier.
Alternating chapters compare snapshots of Ana’s life in Colony Felicidad with her adaptation to modern city life—from seeing ethnic diversity to public school. The white 14-year-old’s focus on emotional relationships in both settings reveals universal truths about human nature’s highs and lows. In the colony, everyone knew each other and greeted each other with affectionate nicknames. Kindness is also found in much larger Toronto, as two white neighborhood teens shepherd Ana through her grade nine year. Conversely, both settings also have sinister sides. Understanding her mother’s disappearance requires facing the abuse and potential lawlessness that exists within Colony Felicidad, while Toronto’s dangers are evident in Ana’s musings about an unsolved Toronto kidnapping and her private navigation of potentially inappropriate attentions from her French teacher. Lyrical writing imbues simple scenes with complex emotional undercurrents, as when a character slides “a plate of dumplings onto the table before snapping apart two chopsticks and jabbing one into a soft, sauce-speckled belly.” The motions feel almost casually violent, slyly suggesting untrustworthiness. It’s these descriptions that truly develop the novel’s mystery-laden tension.
Truly outstanding literary moments distinguish this quiet search for identity. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-91811-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Share your opinion of this book
by E. Lockhart ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2014
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
34
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2014
New York Times Bestseller
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Share your opinion of this book
More by E. Lockhart
BOOK REVIEW
by E. Lockhart
BOOK REVIEW
by E. Lockhart ; illustrated by Manuel Preitano
BOOK REVIEW
by E. Lockhart
More About This Book
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Lynn Painter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 28, 2023
Disappointing.
Unlikely friends fight their growing feelings for each other while placing bets on other people’s love lives.
Bailey met Charlie while flying from Alaska, where she grew up, to Nebraska, where she and her mom would be living after her parents’ divorce. Although they briefly bonded over their parents’ divorces, Charlie’s cynicism grated on the rule-following Bailey, and she was thankful to part ways with him. Three years later, to Bailey’s dismay, she runs into Charlie when they both land jobs at Planet Funnn, a mega-hotel that’s “like a giant landlocked cruise ship.” This time around, Bailey and Charlie begin to get along better. To entertain themselves during their long shifts, they observe and make bets about the hotel guests. But they risk taking it too far when they bet on whether their co-worker Theo will end up with Nekesa, Bailey’s best friend, who’s in “a perfect relationship with the perfect guy.” The book explores Bailey’s conflicted feelings toward her mom’s new relationship with Scott (who doesn’t “do anything wrong” but whose presence changes “the vibe” at home), but it does so in a way that diminishes a primary source of conflict. Bailey's and Charlie’s feelings become even more complicated when Charlie helps Bailey with a fake-dating scheme intended to scare Scott off. Some of the banter between the leads, who are coded white, feels more aggressive than playful, detracting from their intimacy, and the circuitous plot may fail to sustain readers’ interest.
Disappointing. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781665921237
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Share your opinion of this book
More by Lynn Painter
BOOK REVIEW
by Lynn Painter
BOOK REVIEW
by Lynn Painter
BOOK REVIEW
by Lynn Painter
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.