A 12-year-old girl living in a kingdom ruled by a mysterious queen dreams of attaining her sport’s highest prize.
Legacy Petrin lives and works in the financially strapped orphanage in the provinces run by her father and rises early every day to practice tennis with her old racket. After her best friend, Van, excitedly tells her about a scholarship competition for a spot at an esteemed academy and the opportunity to try out for the national championships, Legacy runs away to the city to compete. After winning, she learns there is still much she doesn’t know: The players are not just proficient in tennis, but also have magical skills that they use to their advantage. Legacy befriends Pippa, a knowledgeable girl from an elite tennis family, and acquires a builder, or coach, Javi. With Pippa and Javi at her side, Legacy makes her way through the competition, despite sabotage attempts, learning secrets about her own family along the way. Legacy is a strong character, and the secondary characters also have interesting backstories. The storyline is reminiscent of other dystopian stories, but centering tennis—with lively descriptions of matches that give a strong sense of the sport—is an unusual touch. Most characters are white, although Javi is brown-skinned, and some other characters of color are mentioned.
Magic, tennis action, and family secrets are woven into an original coming-of-age tale. (Fantasy. 9-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949520-03-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Granity Studios
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
High school seniors do the fake dating thing.
Brett Wells has always been focused on football. Brainy Becca Hart’s faith in love was destroyed by her parents’ divorce. The two have little in common other than being pestered by their friends and families about the lack of a special someone in their lives. They embark upon a “fake relationship,” but, predictably, it gives way to a real one. Debut author Light sprinkles in just enough charm and good-natured romance as the narrative bounces between Brett’s and Becca’s perspectives to keep readers engaged but not overwhelmed by twee sentiment. Becca is a much better developed character than Brett (handsome yet doofy, he has the complexity of a golden retriever), and her chapters are the novel’s highlights. Brett’s whole deal is a bigger pill to swallow, but readers who go with it will find a pleasant story. The novel is a syrupy ode to what it feels like to slowly fall for someone for the first time, and that mood is captured effectively. Becca and Brett have chemistry that feels completely natural, but sadly there are some late-in-the-game plot mechanics that feel forced. Fortunately, the author seems as uninterested in these disruptions as readers will be: Things are resolved quickly, and the novel ends on a high note. Whiteness is situated as the norm; main characters are white.
A successful romantic enterprise. (Romance. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-291805-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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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: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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