A fast-paced and accessible thriller.
Quarreling sisters must work together to escape home invaders.
Sisters Abby and Natalie used to be best friends, but they’ve grown apart because of their different personalities and interests. Abby is tentative and introverted, while high school senior Natalie is social and outgoing. After Natalie makes fun of Abby for falling while snowboarding, their parents become so fed up with the girls’ bickering that they leave them behind in their borrowed cabin while they go out to dinner. The teens are alone—Natalie inside and Abby in the hot tub—when two men break in and try to kidnap Natalie. Abby rises to the occasion, stabbing one of the men with an icicle. The girls’ mom is an immigrant from the Philippines, and their dad is white; Abby shouts at her sister, telling her to run into the forest, in Tagalog, a language the white-presenting intruders likely won’t understand. Inadequately dressed for the snowy weather—Abby is barefoot—and with the men in pursuit, the teens need to work together and repair their relationship in order to make it through the night. This novel in verse for reluctant readers maintains a high level of tension from the opening scene on the mountain to the final showdown in the forest. Readers will connect with the realistic depiction of the various facets of the sisters’ relationship.
A fast-paced and accessible thriller. (Verse thriller. 12-18)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781978597389
Page Count: 200
Publisher: West 44 Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gripping tribute to resilience.
A girl with amnesia and a boy suspected of harming his girlfriend overcome adversity to find the answers they seek.
A 17-year-old girl wakes up in a ditch, disoriented and with no memory of who she is or what happened. Found by the Alton, Oregon, police, she is brought to the station. Soon after, Wayne Boone, a man claiming to be her father, shows up. He has photos of her on his phone and her high school ID card, with the name Mary Boone. Wayne convinces the police to release Mary into his custody. The more time Mary spends with Wayne, however, the weirder things get: He’s unaware of her food allergy, and as her memories start to return, they don’t conform with Wayne’s versions of her life. In the town of Washington City, across the Willamette River, Drew is in a bad place. His girlfriend, Lola, has disappeared, and Drew was the last person to see her. His adoptive dads and cousin are the only ones who support him; everyone else, including the sheriff, thinks he’s responsible for Lola’s disappearance. Intent on finding Lola, Drew finds help in an unlikely ally, Lola’s best friend, Autumn, who is the sheriff’s daughter. But will they find Lola in time? The two immersive storylines bring to life the trials and frustrations each main character faces in this debut, which is a thrilling delight right up to the unexpected and bittersweet conclusion. Most characters are cued white; one of Drew’s dads is Guatemalan.
A gripping tribute to resilience. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728270111
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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