Gritty details lend depth to this viscerally powerful tale of a teen struggling to help her troubled family.
Sixteen-year-old Anna cares for younger siblings and experiences first love while dealing with her mother’s mental illness.
Anna Chiu, a Chinese Australian teenager, is older sister to Lily, 13, and Michael, 5. Their father usually sleeps over at the family’s Chinese restaurant, leaving the children to cope with their erratic mother’s extreme, paranoid behaviors. On a good day, Ma is present, taking the kids on outings; on bad days she rants embarrassingly about the perfidies of Western culture or shakes the girls awake in the middle of the night to accuse them of disloyalty. On the worst days she is catatonic in bed. Anna’s schoolwork suffers and she feels alienated by her overachieving, popular Asian Australian schoolmates whose lives seem less burdened than her own. She starts helping out at the restaurant in hopes of bringing her family closer and alleviating their financial insecurity, leading to a romantic relationship with Rory, the White delivery boy—a sensitive, theatrical soul who is hiding his own secrets—that provides comfort. Ma’s episodes are outlined in strikingly authentic, heart-rending detail, as is the variety of the children’s emotional, PTSD–like responses; traumatized and yearning for normality, their portrayals ring especially true. Anna’s stomach churns with anxiety while Lily is often angry and Michael, scared and confused.
Gritty details lend depth to this viscerally powerful tale of a teen struggling to help her troubled family. (resources) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-65611-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Necessary, important, honest, loving, and true.
A gut-wrenching look at how addiction affects a family and a town.
Emory Ward, 16, has long been invisible. Everyone in the town of Mill Haven knows her as the rich girl; her workaholic parents see her as their good child. Then Emory and her 17-year-old brother, Joey, are in a car accident in which a girl dies. Joey wasn’t driving, but he had nearly overdosed on heroin. When Joey returns from rehab, his parents make Emory his keeper and try to corral his addictions with a punitive list of rules. Emory rebels in secret, stealing small items and hooking up with hot neighbor Gage, but her drama class and the friends she gradually begins to be honest with help her reach her own truth. Glasgow, who has personal experience with substance abuse, bases this story on the classic play Our Town but with a twist: The characters learn to see and reach out to each other. The cast members, especially Emory and Joey, are exceptionally well drawn in both their struggles and their joys. Joey’s addiction is horrifying and dark, but it doesn’t define who he is. The portrayal of small-town life and its interconnectedness also rings true. Emory’s family is White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast, and an important adult mentor is gay. Glasgow mentions in her author’s note that over 20 million Americans struggle with substance abuse; she includes resources for teens seeking help.
Necessary, important, honest, loving, and true. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-70804-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
This brutal, emotionally charged novel will grip readers and leave them brokenhearted
A minute-by-minute account of mass murder at a high school by a former student.
Four students from a range of different backgrounds at Alabama's Opportunity High, all of whom have a history with Tyler, the gunman, take turns telling this harrowing story in the first person. They include his sister, Autumn, and her clandestine girlfriend, Sylv, who have only each other for solace as the home lives of both are in upheaval. Tomás, Sylv's brother, recounts his and his friend Fareed's desperate efforts to help from outside the school's auditorium, where their fellow students and teachers are locked in with Tyler as he picks them off one by one. Finally, Claire, Tyler's ex-girlfriend, realistically agonizes over what to do when she and a few others outside running track realize that the gunshots they hear are coming from inside the school. Grounded in the present, the story makes effective use of flashbacks that lay bare the pain and deception that have led up to the day's horror. The language can occasionally feel a bit melodramatic, with lines like "we're fighting for hope and a thousand tomorrows," but this is a minor side note to this compelling story of terror, betrayal, and heroism.
This brutal, emotionally charged novel will grip readers and leave them brokenhearted . (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-2246-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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