Librarians need to steer boys who tinker with internal combustion engines to Weaver’s latest work, set at the Headwaters Speedway, a dirt racetrack located in Northern Minnesota. The large cast of blue-collar characters doesn’t get blisters from video-game controllers but happily accepts skinned knuckles from cranking on torque wrenches. Teenagers Trace Bonham, Melody (Mel) Walters and Beau Kim get their thrills from competitive racing at the decaying track, but they have run into problems: Trace finds that his mechanic has sabotaged his engine, Mel struggles to keep her injured father’s track financially solvent and Beau works to keep his rolling wreck running. A major storm compounds these difficulties by threatening to wash out the big race. Although several race scenes are exciting, minute and potentially boring mechanical details too often interrupt the by-the-numbers plot. Short chapters and a brisk pace, however, may attract those reluctant readers who can recite the firing order of a V-8 and know how to tighten down a valve cover. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: April 10, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-374-35060-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
This commingling of comedy, brutality and fantasy evokes a rich alternate universe with a spitfire young woman as its...
A teenage assassin, a rebel princess, menacing gargoyles, supernatural portals and a glass castle prove to be as thrilling as they sound.
Being the most feared assassin in Adarlan is a notoriety 17-year-old Celaena considers an honor, even though it has landed her in a slave-labor prison no one has ever survived. A year into her sentence, the Crown Prince offers to sponsor Celaena in a competition with 23 other criminals and murderers that, should she win, will result in her freedom. The only catch? She’ll become the king’s personal assassin for four years, the same dark-hearted king who sentenced her to imprisonment. Woven in the vein of a Tolkien fantasy, Celaena’s world is one where magic is outlawed and power is snatched through greed and genocide. The third-person narrative allows frequent insight into multiple characters (heroes and villains alike) but never fully shifts its focus from the confident yet conflicted Celaena. And though violent combat and whispers of the occult surround her, Celaena is still just a teenager trying to forge her way, giving the story timelessness. She might be in the throes of a bloodthirsty competition, but that doesn’t mean she’s not in turmoil over which tall, dark and handsomely titled man of the royal court should be her boyfriend—and which fancy gown she should wear to a costume party.
This commingling of comedy, brutality and fantasy evokes a rich alternate universe with a spitfire young woman as its brightest star. (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59990-695-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
A cautionary tale that exposes the danger of prescription medications by humanizing one victim of America’s current epidemic.
A compassionate, compelling, and terrifying story about a high school softball player’s addiction to opioids.
A promising life can be upended in a minute. One moment star catcher Mickey Catalan, who is assumed white, is living an ordinary life, talking about boys and anticipating a winning season with her best friend, pitcher Carolina Galarza. The next moment her car is upside down in a field, and their promising softball careers are in danger. Mickey’s divorced parents and Carolina’s tightknit Puerto Rican family are rooting for them to recover before the start of the season. After enduring surgeries, they are each given opioid painkillers, yet only Mickey spirals into addiction. From the novel’s opening line, the reader awaits the tragic outcome. What matters are the details—the lying, the stealing, the fear about college scholarships, the pain confronted in the weight room, and the desperate desire to win—because they force the reader to empathize with Mickey’s escalating need. Realistic depictions of heroin abuse abound, and the author includes a trigger warning. The writing is visceral, and following Mickey as she rationalizes about her addiction is educative and frightening. Even more frightening are the descriptive passages that reveal how pleasant the drugs make her feel. By the end, readers understand how heroin can infiltrate even the most promising lives.
A cautionary tale that exposes the danger of prescription medications by humanizing one victim of America’s current epidemic. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-284719-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
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