Without the rich music and stage performance it’s a middling story with themes better handled elsewhere; impeccably timed...
Emmich (The Reminders, 2017) joins the team behind the Tony-winning musical to create this novel adaptation.
Awkward high school senior Evan Hansen has zero friends and a debilitating mixture of depression and anxiety. As a coping mechanism, his therapist assigns him to write letters to himself to reframe his thinking. When one of those letters is found on the body of Connor Murphy, a loner classmate and brother of Evan’s crush, Zoe, the Murphys assume that Connor addressed a suicide note to Evan and that the boys were secretly friends. Evan does nothing to dissuade this notion, and soon his lies build as he experiences belonging and acceptance for the first time. But as his anxiety winds ever tighter and others notice loopholes in his story, Evan begins to unravel as he fears exposure. Evan’s first-person narration is simultaneously sympathetic and frustrating, female characters feel underdeveloped, and the story’s representation of mental health issues is at times underwhelming. Inserted interludes of Connor’s ghostly first-person, post-death perspective provide marginal insight into his character, although it is here that readers learn of Connor’s fluid sexuality. Whether or not they’ve seen or listened to the musical, many readers will latch on to the story’s message that “no one deserves to be forgotten.” Evan presents as white, and other major characters are African-American and Latinx.
Without the rich music and stage performance it’s a middling story with themes better handled elsewhere; impeccably timed for the musical’s national tour, however, teens will clamor to read it. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-42023-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poppy/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage.
Adrian, the youngest of the Montague siblings, sails into tumultuous waters in search of answers about himself, the sudden death of his mother, and her mysterious, cracked spyglass.
On the summer solstice less than a year ago, Caroline Montague fell off a cliff in Aberdeen into the sea. When the Scottish hostel where she was staying sends a box of her left-behind belongings to London, Adrian—an anxious, White nobleman on the cusp of joining Parliament—discovers one of his mother’s most treasured possessions, an antique spyglass. She acquired it when she was the sole survivor of a shipwreck many years earlier. His mother always carried that spyglass with her, but on the day of her death, she had left it behind in her room. Although he never knew its full significance, Adrian is haunted by new questions and is certain the spyglass will lead him to the truth. Once again, Lee crafts an absorbing adventure with dangerous stakes, dynamic character growth, sharp social and political commentary, and a storm of emotion. Inseparable from his external search for answers about his mother, Adrian seeks a solution for himself, an end to his struggle with mental illness—a journey handled with hopeful, gentle honesty that validates the experiences of both good and bad days. Characters from the first two books play significant secondary roles, and the resolution ties up their loose ends. Humorous antics provide a well-measured balance with the heavier themes.
An enticing, turbulent, and satisfying final voyage. (Historical fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-291601-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
A winning game of feelingsball.
A former football star, who never thought she’d play again after she came out as transgender, steps back onto the field for one last season to help her team win state.
Grace Woodhouse used to know where she belonged. She had Division I schools lined up to recruit her, but that was before what happened during playoffs last year, before she came out as trans, and before she quit the team. Although her single father and new friend group support her, Grace feels lost as her senior year begins. When one of her old teammates asks her to help him with his technique, she quickly realizes that he and the other captains are hoping for more than her expertise from the sidelines—they want her to rejoin the team. Grace can’t resist the opportunity to play again, but her return draws unwanted national attention that makes her question her future and who she wants to be. Flashback chapters written in the second-person present tense bring Grace’s past to life, which helps maintain momentum and makes her emotional journey feel more immersive. A heartfelt, goofy, and diverse cast of secondary characters surround Grace, who’s white, as she navigates self-doubt, friendship, complicated feelings for her ex-girlfriend, and what she wants to do after graduation. Overall, this coming-of-age sports narrative is honest, gentle, and hopeful.
A winning game of feelingsball. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781646145027
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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