Take a photo of a barcode or cover
liralen 's review for:
Her Name in the Sky
by Kelly Quindlen
Nice balance here, for the most part. Hannah's attracted to girls (and one girl in particular), which is a major source of conflict throughout the book, but there's also a lot more going on. She and her friends are comfortably popular and getting ready to go off to college, and while they're basically good kids, they also lie to their parents and drink and occasionally cut class. They think their friendship is as solid as solid can be, but they find out soon enough that there are cracks.
There's a bit too much partying in here for my tastes—it starts to feel a little repetitive after a while—but I think it's also meant to serve as a reminder that, at their core, these are just average kids living their lives. Also considerably more religion than I'd expected: they're in Catholic school, and as such religion pervades the fabric of their school lives. Combine that with living in the South, and it's an unforgiving environment for a student (or two students) trying to figure out sexuality. This leads to a little more drama than I think I'd prefer: there's some significant violence near the end of the book, and on top of the relationship drama (I get that Baker's figuring things out too, but man, she puts Hannah through the wringer, and), it feels like a lot at times. But...generally speaking, I just really like how normal and authentic the characters feel. Their tight-knit friend group makes for some great characters, and I really love that when it unravels it does so for the reasons they can't all fully understand at the time—it's a lot more complicated than, for example, straight-up homophobia. I also have to appreciate that the parents of the book have their priorities in order, which is to say that they stand by their kid in the now and have a close look at their own biases after.
Self-published, and there are some minor proofreading errors (and a persistent one: "all right" should always be two words, never "alright"), but I'm very happy that the local library system just acquired half a dozen copies of the book. It's always nice to see additions to the available queer YA lit options.
There's a bit too much partying in here for my tastes—it starts to feel a little repetitive after a while—but I think it's also meant to serve as a reminder that, at their core, these are just average kids living their lives. Also considerably more religion than I'd expected: they're in Catholic school, and as such religion pervades the fabric of their school lives. Combine that with living in the South, and it's an unforgiving environment for a student (or two students) trying to figure out sexuality. This leads to a little more drama than I think I'd prefer: there's some significant violence near the end of the book, and on top of the relationship drama (I get that Baker's figuring things out too, but man, she puts Hannah through the wringer, and
Spoiler
I'm not super optimistic about their relationship past the end of the bookSelf-published, and there are some minor proofreading errors (and a persistent one: "all right" should always be two words, never "alright"), but I'm very happy that the local library system just acquired half a dozen copies of the book. It's always nice to see additions to the available queer YA lit options.