Photo Booth

Gr 7 Up—Interpol agent Praveer Rajani's emotional baggage is having a serious impact on his life. His parents were killed in a car crash years earlier, and the driver responsible was never caught. He has difficulty controlling his temper, and only recently had his job reinstated. While working on a drug bust, he sees an old photo booth that brings back memories, but it is a while before readers understand this subplot. The story moves back and forth between different time periods and focuses on many characters including Praveer, his brother Jayendra, their sister Nisha, and Jayendra's girlfriend Shalini. This is occasionally confusing, as readers at first expect that Praveer is the main character but then the story detours into Jayendra's life for so long that he seems to be the focus instead. About halfway through the book, readers learn about the photo booth itself, and about how the pictures that the siblings had taken there changed their lives. Nagar's illustrations are in color for the modern segments and in black-and-white for many of the flashbacks. Praveer's temper tantrums are ridiculously portrayed (no one's face should become that comically distorted unless he's a manga character), and teens will have trouble identifying with him while thinking that he needs a psychiatric evaluation.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library