A heartfelt, three-hankie exploration of a topic all too many teens must confront.
High school junior Erin Bailey’s whole life changes when her mother is diagnosed with late stage breast cancer.
In an even more unkind twist of fate, Erin finds out that she has inherited a BRCA gene mutation, which means she has a significant risk of contracting reproductive cancer herself. This discovery, along with the loss of her beloved daredevil father in a flying accident a few years before and a less-than-stellar social life, puts Erin at the top of the list of teens facing tough, real-life dilemmas. Help comes in the form of friendly advice she receives from a girl on the BRCA gene website who offers Erin sanctuary on a remote island in Florida. A newly fledged pilot, Erin heads for Florida, hoping to meet up with her new friend. Although what she discovers there will surprise both Erin and readers, she finds support as well, enabling her to weather the further storms of college applications, more teen drama and the inevitable decline of her mother. Although some might look askance at Erin’s unconventional decision to take the genetic test at such a young age, mature teens will appreciate this carefully researched and authentic exposé of a difficult subject. Erin’s first-person, present-tense narration isn’t flashy, but it does get readers effectively in her groove.
A heartfelt, three-hankie exploration of a topic all too many teens must confront. (Fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61963-341-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake
When a Romeo and Juliet mobster romance just isn't enough.
A year after a terrible experience, 17-year-old Rosa Alcantara is leaving home. She's left Brooklyn for Sicily, where she will be joining her sister in the family business: organized crime. An unlikable petty thief, Rosa thinks she's prepared for joining Cosa Nostra. But there are reasons beyond the Mafia to fear her ancestral home. Her attraction to Alessandro Carnevare, the scion of a rival (and stronger) Mafia house, can only get her into trouble. Both the Alcantaras and Carnevares are hiding an unbelievable secret. Alessandro, like the rest of his family, has a feline form: a monstrous panther. Meanwhile, Rosa discovers that the Alcantaras transform into enormous snakes. The shapeshifting makes for a more deadly rivalry—or a more twisted romantic pairing. On top of everything else, there's a kidnapped mob schoolgirl, a murdered mother, an attempted coup, family betrayals, a tragic lesbian relationship and whispers of a conspiracy, all told in choppy, infelicitous prose. (It's possible the clunkiness of the prose may be laid at the feet of the unidentified translator from the German.) A smaller subset of plot threads might have allowed room for Rosa to grow into a more than just a survivor.
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-200606-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Fans of the series who managed to enjoy volumes four and five will be pleased to find more of the same
The Caretakers fight the mind-controlling Echthroi through a tangle of timelines.
This penultimate volume in the Imaginarium Geographica series features such a massive ensemble of dead white men that it's difficult to follow their storylines. Don Quixote, Aristophanes and a badger quest for magic armor. Charles Williams, original characters Rose and Edmund, H.G. Wells, Richard Burton and a Clash of the Titans–style mechanical owl travel in time. J.R.R. Tolkien and Jules Verne meet a secret society so packed with dead authors that six William Blake clones ("We call them Blake's Seven") fit right in. A Chinese librarian speaking pidgin English betrays the questers, Medea meets Gilgamesh, and triple agents abound. A goblin market is peopled with characters from The Last Unicorn who make jokes from Blazing Saddles; Nathaniel Hawthorne paraphrases the 1988 cult classic They Live; a future Caretaker quotes Darth Vader. "Jules Verne show[s] goats descended from the herds of Genghis Khan in a county fair in an Indian nation in America … " Confused yet? If not, perhaps you'll be able to make sense of a resolution that relies on pasts that never were and futures that might-have-been.
Fans of the series who managed to enjoy volumes four and five will be pleased to find more of the same . (Fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1223-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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