Skyscraping

March 15, 2015
A teenage girl grapples with her family's growing pains. Set in early 1990s Manhattan as the AIDS crisis was hitting its peak, Jensen's semiautobiographical debut novel in verse explores how shifting parental dynamics can affect a household. At the novel's start, Miranda "Mira" Stewart has always been a dedicated student and engaged daughter, devoted to her academician father and younger sister and struggling to relate to her self-involved artist mother. Her biggest concerns are what theme to choose as she takes the editorial helm of her high school yearbook, how to negotiate the absence of her recently graduated boyfriend, and filling out college applications-all typical senior-year fare. "But the constellation of a family / can shift shape / in seconds." When Mira discovers her father in a compromising position with his male teaching assistant, both her image of him and her understanding of her parents' relationship collapse. Mira withdraws from her family and acts out at school, at first unwilling to forgive her parents for having kept a crucial part of their relationship hidden. Throughout, Jensen's spare free-verse poems and accessible imagery realistically portray the fraught moments of adolescent identity formation with great empathy. Compelling snapshots of contemporary family drama and the AIDS epidemic as captured through a teen's eyes. (Historical fiction/verse. 14 & up)

June 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-A moving coming-of-age story set in 1993 New York City. A great time capsule of the decade, replete with pay phones, Nirvana, mixtapes, the 9 train, and Connect Four, this novel makes the ordinary extraordinary. Miranda is entering her senior year of high school and thinks she has everything worked out. Though she has a tense relationship with her often-absent mother, she has a loving father and great younger sister for support. Mira's senior year also seems to be progressing pretty well. She is head of the school's yearbook committee, a senior mentor, and all set to apply to Columbia University where her father lectures. Until her life comes crashing down. The novel is well written in a beautifully flowing free verse that tackles complicated topics such as relationships, the first sexual experience, high school to college transitions, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS. The author adeptly balances the forward-moving plot and the well-rounded characters. This lyrical, accessible narrative with spare text is a great choice for reluctant readers. Those who enjoyed Isabel Quintero's Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (Cinco Puntos, 2014), also about a strong female protagonist in her senior year of high school facing tough decisions, and fans of Neal Shusterman's coming-of-age tale set in New York City, Downsiders (S. & S., 1999), might also want to check this out. VERDICT A skillfully told and captivating novel about love, family, and surviving the hardships of life.-Julie Zimmerman, School Library Journal

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 15, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Jensen's semiautobiographical debut novel in verse thrusts readers into the flannel-clad early 1990s, before New York City lost its gritty edge. Mira's senior year is supposed to be about editing the school yearbook and applying to college, but instead, it's the year she discovers, Things can switch so quickly, / like the flick of a light. After walking in on her professor father and his teaching assistant James, both naked, she finds her world upturned: her parents' marriage is open. Her father is gay. And his days are numbered, because his HIV is quickly turning into full-blown AIDS. In exquisite free-verse poems, Jensen traces Mira's struggle as she drifts away from her family before being jerked back into their orbit. Mira's emotional landscape is palpable and strongly rooted in celestial imagery, which she uses to make sense of her place in the universe in the midst of life-shattering change. Small period details, from Keith Haring's artwork to the emergence of Starbucks to Kurt Cobain's death, layer in historical context naturally, but it's Jensen's stunning ability to bring the raw uncertainty of the AIDS crisis in the 1990s to vivid life that is so exceptional. Illuminating and deeply felt.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)