Perhaps it wasn't exactly a rape, but Valerie knows that those few moments when she was cornered in the school corridor have changed her forever. The nightmares may fade, but she'll never regain her trust in a safe world. With great skill and compassion, Mazer endows the cast of this familiar drama with real individuality. Two of the boys are school leaders with home problems to fuel the anger they act out in mean-spirited pranks; the third—oversize, relatively nice Rollo (whose point of view prevails)—is a follower, thoughtlessly caught up in the excitement of his friends' misdeeds. The student grapevine is swift, adding embarrassment to Valerie's pain; and she gets little sympathy from a principal who thinks first of ``damage control.'' In time, she and some other girls begin to exchange similar experiences, helping her make the decision to write a letter, describing her trauma, to a local paper. Meanwhile, though the other boys persist in thinking the incident was ``no big deal,'' Rollo worries and tries to open communication with Valerie. Still, when she challenges him to imagine himself in her position, he simply doesn't get it—somehow, he persists, he would have been strong enough to escape. Accessible, but far from simplistic, Mazer's balanced depiction of both sides is a powerful demonstration of the evils of harassment and how its victims can assert themselves; it may even help harassers see the other side. (Fiction. 12-17)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10208-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A meditation on a timely subject that never forgets to put its characters and their stories first
An Afghani-Australian teen named Mina earns a scholarship to a prestigious private school and meets Michael, whose family opposes allowing Muslim refugees and immigrants into the country.
Dual points of view are presented in this moving and intelligent contemporary novel set in Australia. Eleventh-grader Mina is smart and self-possessed—her mother and stepfather (her biological father was murdered in Afghanistan) have moved their business and home across Sydney in order for her to attend Victoria College. She’s determined to excel there, even though being surrounded by such privilege is a culture shock for her. When she meets white Michael, the two are drawn to each other even though his close-knit, activist family espouses a political viewpoint that, though they insist it is merely pragmatic, is unquestionably Islamophobic. Tackling hard topics head-on, Abdel-Fattah explores them fully and with nuance. True-to-life dialogue and realistic teen social dynamics both deepen the tension and provide levity. While Mina and Michael’s attraction seems at first unlikely, the pair’s warmth wins out, and readers will be swept up in their love story and will come away with a clearer understanding of how bias permeates the lives of those targeted by it.
A meditation on a timely subject that never forgets to put its characters and their stories first . (Fiction. 12-17)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-11866-7
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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
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