A timely, suspenseful, well-written page-turner with compelling main characters and one notable flaw.
An accidental meeting leads to romance for two anxious teens; sharing secrets, they discover each is being stalked.
Rev wears hoodies to cover scars left by his abusive father a decade earlier; successful adoption hasn’t healed Rev’s invisible scars, either. When Rev turns 18, his father initiates contact. His increasingly ominous emails reawaken Rev’s nightmarish memories. Meanwhile, Emma’s proud of the computer game she designed, an escape from her parents’ foundering marriage. When a player/troll intrudes with obscene, threatening messages, she turns to a friendly player, who offers help. She mends a frayed friendship too, but her parents’ marriage proves unfixable. The teens’ connection is a balm for Rev and Emma, even as each inflicts unintended pain. The troubled teen Rev’s parents take in as a short-term foster placement brings horrific baggage, adding to Rev’s stress. Rev and Emma fear growing into their parents. Could Rev become his violent father? Might Emma morph into her cold, sniping mother? Family dysfunction, anxiety, and PTSD from long-term abuse are all believably conveyed. Frustratingly, in contrast to the well-crafted white characters (Rev, Emma, and most others), Rev’s black, adoptive parents are “magical Negroes.” Saintly, loving, infertile middle-class professionals, they’re generic, place-holder avatars. Unlike Emma’s vivid, problematic parents, Rev’s lack individual traits or lives separate from their adjunct role, and the narrative is largely oblivious to race.
A timely, suspenseful, well-written page-turner with compelling main characters and one notable flaw. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68119-014-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A thrilling quest through real and metaphorical mazes, obstacles, and trials.
Five sisters learn they have hidden powers that might help them save their mother from danger.
Mnemosyne is the Goddess of Memory, a Titan who was granted asylum on Mount Olympus by Zeus after the Titan war. But Mnemosyne, who has bronze skin and black hair, eventually fled Olympus, wiping the gods’ memories so she could start her own family in safety. She created five daughters: gifted storyteller and leader Calliope, inquisitive history buff Clio, volatile empath Melpomene, magical dancer Terpsichore, and gifted comedian Thalia. Mnemosyne successfully keeps their existence hidden from the gods until the girls stage a public birthday performance for her. As Mnemosyne hurriedly explains the danger the girls are in, she’s kidnapped by Pain and Panic, two minions of Hades, God of the Underworld. The sisters must now put aside their differences to use their unique strengths and their mother’s special journal to ask the very gods their mother fears for help. A nice exploration of lesser-known female figures from Greek mythology, this tale features a fine balance of self-actualization and connections among the central characters, each of whom has a distinct temperament and narrative. The dramatis personae and pronunciation key will also make it easier for readers to distinguish the different cast members.
A thrilling quest through real and metaphorical mazes, obstacles, and trials. (Fantasy. 13-17)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781368098700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Disney Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst.
When a calamitous drought overtakes southern California, a group of teens must struggle to keep their lives and their humanity in this father-son collaboration.
When the Tap-Out hits and the state’s entire water supply runs dry, 16-year-old Alyssa Morrow and her little brother, Garrett, ration their Gatorade and try to be optimistic. That is, until their parents disappear, leaving them completely alone. Their neighbor Kelton McCracken was born into a survivalist family, but what use is that when it’s his family he has to survive? Kelton is determined to help Alyssa and Garrett, but with desperation comes danger, and he must lead them and two volatile new acquaintances on a perilous trek to safety and water. Occasionally interrupted by “snapshots” of perspectives outside the main plot, the narrative’s intensity steadily rises as self-interest turns deadly and friends turn on each other. No one does doom like Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead, 2018, etc.)—the breathtakingly jagged brink of apocalypse is only overshadowed by the sense that his dystopias lie just below the surface of readers’ fragile reality, a few thoughtless actions away. He and his debut novelist son have crafted a world of dark thirst and fiery desperation, which, despite the tendrils of hope that thread through the conclusion, feels alarmingly near to our future. There is an absence of racial markers, leaving characters’ identities open.
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst. (Thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8196-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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