An intriguing concept overtaken by thin characters and poor pacing.
Nearly a year after the death of her best friend, Lizzie, 15-year-old Emily is abducted by Lizzie’s parents to fill the void in their lives.
Emily wakes up in Maine, far from her Connecticut home, to find her hair dyed black and her eyes changed to green by contacts, making her look just like Lizzie. Lizzie’s mother tells her that as long as she cooperates, no harm will come to her or her family. Good behavior earns her a television and meals upstairs. Bad behavior means starvation and isolation. Emily begins to play along, determined to keep her family safe while at the same time finding a way to escape. But with Lizzie’s mother, father, and sister always watching, she fears she will be trapped in this nightmare forever. Then she meets Casey, a musically gifted boy who is legally blind. Together they come up with a plan to help Emily escape her prison. In this psychological thriller that studies the depths of grief, Emily’s empathy for her kidnappers keeps the sensationalism to a minimum by personalizing the betrayal. A preponderance of backstory slows the narrative and deflates the tension. Ultimately this is a story about love and loss threaded through with moments of a tense thriller. All main characters are Irish-American Catholics.
An intriguing concept overtaken by thin characters and poor pacing. (Thriller. 12-15)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-29850-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Filled with plenty of volleyball action and lots of heart, too.
Tragedy leads to upheaval, but also growth and new connections, for a teen athlete from Kentucky.
Catherine Griffin has lived in the small town of Danbury for all of her 16 years, and it’s just been her and her mom—no dad in sight. So she’s left reeling when the sudden loss of her mother to a heart attack forces her to move across the country to live with Knox Carter—the father whose last name she never even knew. Cat arrives in Silver Beach, California, clinging to the one thing that provides a feeling of normality: volleyball. It seems that Silver Beach High is well equipped to fill this need in her life, but unfortunately, the sport also seems to attract the popular mean girls, and they have it out for Cat from day one. Her home life isn’t easy either, with restaurant manager Knox, who never married, working late and at times seeming to forget her existence. But she makes a new friend in quirky, artistic June Hoang, who also plays volleyball. This fun and engaging series opener has solid volleyball competition scenes, an appealing underdog plotline around beach volleyball training (Knox was a pro player), a light love interest in the form of surfer Miles, and a likeable protagonist. Most characters present white, and June is Vietnamese American.
Filled with plenty of volleyball action and lots of heart, too. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268458
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
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