Koller follows up A Place To Call Home (1995) with this raw, funny-if-it- weren’t-so-painful journal of a disabled teenager given to self-destructive behavior. Luke—big, good-natured, sensitive, popular, captain of the wrestling team—is nonetheless tortured by something he won’t put down in writing. His life has become a chain of disasters: He accidentally chops off his dog’s tail; he secretly borrows the family car to crash a party, and his best friend Hutch chucks all over it; at 17 he already has a long record of collisions and speeding tickets, even though he considers himself a careful driver. Koller gives alert readers enough clues that it isn’t a complete surprise when he finally works his way around to admitting that his left eye is artificial. That’s plainly not the reason for his self-loathing, though. Caught in a severe downward internal spiral, convinced of his worthlessness, he breaks up with his girlfriend, punctures his good eye, begins to see a pediatric psychologist in the hospital while his eye heals, and finds himself rooming with a former schoolmate who attempted suicide rather than tell his parents that he’s gay. Unsurprisingly, Luke’s perspective improves. While he often sounds whiny, Luke is an appealing character, and readers will keep turning the pages, waiting for Koller to drop in the next piece of the puzzle that lies at the heart of Luke’s anguish. A memorable case study in teenage guilt. (Fiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81294-9
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
