This charming novel depicts a realistic slice of life as a nonbinary teen.
Nonbinary teen Ciel deals with friendship, romance, and internet drama in their first year of high school.
Ciel’s gender confuses the teachers, all the bathrooms are gendered, and even the Gender and Sexuality Alliance isn’t the safe space it should be, but Ciel remains optimistic. They are saving to buy a camera and take their YouTube channel to the next level. But as their channel gains popularity, it also gains attention from trolls who disparage nonbinary identities and say Brazilian Canadian Ciel should “go back to [their] country.” Meanwhile, the Montréal teen and their best friend, Stephie, seem to be growing apart, and their long-distance boyfriend Eiríkur (he lives in Iceland) takes weeks to respond to their emails. Refreshingly, Ciel is not the only trans character in their story; both friends and foes are trans or queer. The most vicious attacks on Ciel’s gender come from a believable trans character, not a transphobic straw man. Ciel doesn’t win a victory for trans rights but simply triumphs over personal hurdles. Though accessible and filled with likable characters, the book suffers from a meandering plot, dangling threads, and language choices that weaken the authenticity of Ciel’s voice. In particular, Ciel sounds like a technological dinosaur with their reliance on email communication. The translation from the French seems to commit only halfway to recasting the story into an English-speaking setting, landing on a confusing middle ground. However, Ciel’s heart shines through the stylistic issues.
This charming novel depicts a realistic slice of life as a nonbinary teen. (Fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77260-136-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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