An exceptional swan song for a beloved character.
Attention theater nerds! Nate Foster has returned for one last encore.
Sadly, Nate’s return is not off to a promising start. His world is breaking apart. The not-really-a-hit E.T.: The Musical did not pick up any Tony nominations, and as Broadway babies know, this usually signals the end of most musical runs. As the show enters its final days, Nate must come to terms with returning home to Jankburg, Pennsylvania, saying goodbye to his aunt and NYC–guardian, Heidi, and leaving his crush (and make-out buddy) Jordan, the star of the show. Things may not be completely bleak, however. Once home, Nate is reunited with his best friend, Libby, and begins his new quest: high school, where his adventures include self-discovery, musical theater (duh), crushes, and coming out. Federle is in fine form here, and readers will laugh out loud at Nate’s adventures (and dramatics). The storyline may have matured along with Nate, but the tone is still fresh, irreverent, and over-the-top. Some subplots may be a skosh unrealistic—such as Nate’s near-total acceptance in his new school—but readers will likely forgive a point or two as the teen thespians mount a musical adaptation of Great Expectations. As enjoyable as Nate may be, the standout character of the book is Libby, whose Tina Fey–like humor and Oprah-like efficiency will have readers in stitches.
An exceptional swan song for a beloved character. (Fiction 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0412-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
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