An enduring story populated with endearing characters.
The heated beginnings of an international queer romance.
Tycho Zeling has never really thought about the course his life should take. Perhaps that’s why he makes the sudden decision to take a gap year after high school and spend his summer at an international youth camp in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the Amsterdam airport, the Dutch teen happens to meet up with a fellow junior counselor who is headed for the same camp—Oliver Kjelsberg from Norway. The two strike up a fast friendship and end up sharing a tiny supply closet as their camp housing. After Tycho awakens to his feelings for Oliver, what follows seems fantastically inevitable. The boys’ romance rushes along largely in private until the camp director tells them they need to be more discreet. Even though the majority of the staff support them, Oliver and Tycho decide they would rather leave than live inauthentically. They depart for Oliver’s empty house (his mother is on holiday), where Tycho now has the privilege of seeing his boyfriend in his natural habitat, but he still cannot find a place for himself. Dutch author van de Vendel’s writing is poetic, intensely emotional, and sensitively philosophical in this beautiful translation by Rault. This book, originally published in 1999, is described in the author’s note as standing in defiance of the old trend of depressing, fatalistic queer literature; it leaves readers with an open ending that leans strongly toward the optimistic.
An enduring story populated with endearing characters. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64614-046-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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