A beautifully written, compassionate coming-of-age tale with subtle mythic overtones.
A 16-year-old girl’s unexpected pregnancy leads her on a hero’s journey in this 1963-set debut historical novel.
Waking up in a university library with her 18-year-old boyfriend, Quentin Caffrey, after a night of drunken, frat-house partying, prep schooler Helen Bird is panicked, and not just because she missed her chaperone’s curfew. The couple’s unspoken agreement, formed in “their foggy world of wordless decisions,” has been to use coitus interruptus as their only form of birth control, but this time, Helen can’t find the sticky evidence. She says nothing to Quentin. Later, in his dorm room, he contemplates writing her a letter about his mystical, profound “epiphany” that justified not pulling out (it “would be wrong, even evil, a turning away from the sublime”). But his next missive is silent on the subject. As for Helen, she returns home to Arlington, Virginia, and her junior year at St. Joan’s. She figures out (more or less) how to use her mother’s douche bag and hopes for the best but never considers talking to her parent, who also grew up in a family where many important things were unsayable. Her father, too, knows how to bite his tongue, as when forced to write pro–strip mining press releases for his boss, a United States senator. Though she tries to resume her life of propriety, Helen must soon face up to the truth: She’s pregnant, and only an abortion can save her future. It requires the girl to find an inner determination she didn’t know she had, reach out to a friend, trust strangers, and ask for help. Both in the process and its aftermath, these resources come through for her, allowing Helen to make rich connections with feminine strength and caring, finally breaking her and her family’s walls of silence.
In her novel, Sibbison writes thoughtfully about her hero’s dilemma and its cultural, familial, and personal context. For example, Quentin doesn’t buy condoms because that “would make their sex premeditated and Helen a ‘pig.’ No decent, unmarried girl would plan to have intercourse.” Similarly, Helen’s mother has a poignant backstory that makes sense of her reticence: “It was obvious that she was to know nothing. Questions would bring only displeasure, which Rosemary could not risk.” Moral characterization is complex, as when delineating the Birds’ support of the civil rights movement; their sympathy “was real but almost entirely abstract.” Another character, Ilse Gaulden, a young woman who helps arrange abortions, became involved after realizing that civil rights workers were getting pregnant in the name of free love. Since something should be done, Ilse did it. The author does a fine job of tying Helen’s everyday life, during which she must hide every sign of her pregnancy, to the compelling archetypal elements in her experience. The correspondence is especially powerful when—emotionally and literally—the girl must make a tenebrous voyage to Ilse’s rough, ill-lit neighborhood before reaching her destination’s unexpected warmth.
A beautifully written, compassionate coming-of-age tale with subtle mythic overtones.Pub Date: July 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73665-063-9
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Booksmyth Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring.
When Death-Cast doesn’t call, fate intertwines the lives of two boys, both haunted by their pasts and with futures they can’t escape.
In this third installment of the series that opened with 2017’s They Both Die at the End, Paz Dario waits every night for Death-Cast to call—as it should have for his father nearly 10 years ago, when Paz shot him to save his mother’s life. But the call never comes. Death-Cast killed Paz’s dreams of an acting career: No one will hire him now because the world sees him as a villain. When Paz tries (not for the first time) to put an end to his suffering, an unexpected encounter with Alano Rosa, the heir of Death-Cast, stops him. Both in a place of desperation, Alano and Paz sign a contract to live for Begin Days instead of waiting for their End Days. As suspenseful and emotionally wrenching as the previous titles in the series, this new installment explores heavy themes of abuse, mental health, self-harm, and suicide. Paz grapples with a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Silvera surrounds Alano and Paz with a web of complex relationships. Although the protagonists fall fast for one another and form a deep connection over Alano’s desire to support Paz, Silvera emphasizes the importance of professional help. Both Alano and Paz have Puerto Rican heritage. The cliffhanger ending promises more to come.
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring. (content warning, resources) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780063240858
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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