Panic

August 15, 2019
After discovering an origami moon with a poem inside at her favorite cafe, Madelaine Joseph's seemingly quiet life is plunged into a thrilling adventure. Madelaine has been a performer for as long as she can remember. As the daughter and client of Jesse Joseph, a well-known talent manager for Broadway and the television industry, Madelaine seems to enjoy the privileges that come with her insider connections. However, her life isn't as glamorous as it seems. Caught between her divorced parents, she struggles with panic attacks and undiagnosed anxiety and yearns to find and express her own voice. The poem she discovers in the paper moon fits perfectly as lyrics for a song she composed, prompting Madelaine to seek out its author. Her trusted circle of friends--twins McKenna and Brendon and her half sister, Hayley--now expands to one Dylan Thomas, who reaches out online and claims to be the artist behind the moon and poem. Madelaine finds herself easily able to confide in Dylan while also unsure of how much she can trust a stranger. Dawn (Blink, 2018, etc.) draws in readers, showing them that there is more to a person than what one sees on the surface. The author makes it easy to be both frustrated with the characters' choices and yet to empathize with them. All characters are presumed white; Brendon is pansexual. Compelling and captivating. (Fiction. 13-18)

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September 1, 2019

Gr 9 Up-High school junior Madelaine, an aspiring actress and musician, has been torn between her divorced parents for many years. Her mom, a survivor of breast cancer, is struggling to work two jobs and make ends meet, while her father is a successful talent agent living in a large house in the suburbs of Chicago. Though Madelaine tries her best to remain loyal to her mom, she has a hard time turning away from her father's offers of shopping sprees and trips to New York City. When Madelaine finds an origami moon with a poem inside of it at her favorite coffee shop, she is inspired to finish a song she's been writing and searches for the mysterious creator of the moon. Dylan, a member of an online music site, comes forward and befriends Madelaine digitally. As Madelaine tries to juggle auditions, family life, and school work, she occasionally notices a suspicious man appearing in the places she frequents. Though she wonders if her Internet friend is responsible, she uncovers shocking family secrets that make her realize the situation is even more intense than she imagined. This is a sweet book with a touching story line that will likely strike a chord with teens going through any type of family drama. On the downside, frequent passages of text message conversations are distracting, and some of the characters are two-dimensional. VERDICT Recommended for large libraries, especially those interested in theater and arts.-Karin Greenberg, Manhasset High School, Manhasset, NY

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2019
Grades 9-12 Madelaine loves performing music, because she doesn't suffer from panic attacks when she's on stage pretending to be another person. One day, after discovering amazing poetry in an origami moon, she decides to turn the words into a song, which she posts online. When someone named Dylan messages her on a music app, claiming to be the author, the two tweens set about a collaboration. Meanwhile, Madelaine's homelife is spiraling out of control. Her father-manager refuses to help pay for tuition to local art schools in order to punish his ex-wife, who works two jobs just to make ends meet. After her mother experiences a second cancer scare, Madelaine is faced with the daunting task of threatening to fire her father in order to take control of the money she makes. And as she begins to contemplate meeting Dylan, she fears that someone is following her around the city?but who? Dawn's story will appeal to performing arts teens and readers who enjoy gripping family dramas.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)