Next book

WHO WE WERE IN THE DARK

A somewhat engaging but ultimately meandering and uneven story.

A quartet of teens meet one summer at Donner Lake in Northern California and reunite during subsequent school breaks to reestablish their bonds in this contemporary novel.

Nora and her older brother, Wesley, first go to the lake when their long-absent father suddenly reenters their lives, taking them to his family’s cabin in part to give their mom, who is ill, a break. Nora follows unpredictable Grace, who beckons to her after Nora watches her sneak out the window of her nearby cabin one night, and Wesley trails them to a meeting point Grace has set up with her friend Rand. In an eerily atmospheric narrative that moves sometimes confusingly between the present—when readers know that Grace has gone missing—and various points in the past when the group spent time together, a story emerges of a deeply felt but unconvincing camaraderie among the four and romances between Grace and Wesley and Nora and Rand. Grace’s role as the star that holds the other three in her orbit is made clear from the start, though her character isn’t developed deeply enough to make her hold on the others believable. The realistic subplot about Nora's and Wesley’s strained relationships with both their parents is a poignant one, and it proves more compelling than the central drama. All of the characters are White.

A somewhat engaging but ultimately meandering and uneven story. (Fiction. 14-18)

Pub Date: July 5, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-7352-2814-6

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022

Next book

INDIVISIBLE

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

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 41


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2014


  • New York Times Bestseller

Next book

WE WERE LIARS

From the We Were Liars series

Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 41


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2014


  • New York Times Bestseller

A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.

Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.

Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Pub Date: May 13, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014

Close Quickview