A moving, sensitive exploration of healing in the wake of loss.
Feeling independent yet deeply alone, a girl uses her deceased sister’s journal to help her move forward.
Until three years ago, Nina’s family spent their summers in Paris, a delightful tradition that included happy memories and fun times with the ebullient Aunt Renee. But ever since her older sister Lily’s death in a bike accident, Nina’s parents have retreated into themselves, leaving Nina to try to find ways to ground herself. She hopes to find some peace with what happened by completing Lily’s “13 Before 13” list prior to her own upcoming 13th birthday. Lily kissed someone and learned to bake before she died, but other items on the list remain undone, and one—“Take a selfie with the Mona Lisa”—requires her to be in Paris. Aunt Renee enrolls Nina, a white-presenting American girl, in art classes and arranges for her co-worker’s daughter Sylvie, who’s Black, to be Nina’s “nouvelle amie” and Métro guide. Nina finds her feelings for Sylvie blossoming into the possibility of more, and pursuing the tasks on Lily’s list provides a springboard for her growth. The verse format and scenes in which Nina relives moments when Lily was alive suit the depth of Nina’s feelings and her halting, uncertain progress through the aftereffects of Lily’s death. The Parisian setting is authentically developed, and the pitch-perfect ending brings the plot full circle and allows for gentle closure for a summer crush.
A moving, sensitive exploration of healing in the wake of loss. (Verse fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780063256989
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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