An entertaining and undemanding entry in a popular series.
This fantasy/romance story set in the world of the animated Disney film Brave reconciles Merida to her mother and her (slightly changed) future.
Nineteen-year-old Merida believes that she’s “her father’s fierce lass, not her mother’s proper princess.” She wants to be free—to change traditions and escape her fate as a bride in a marriage of political expedience. After a heated clash with her mother, Queen Elinor, Merida comes across a witch, who gives her a magical cake that guarantees “a great transformation.” After eating it, Merida wakes up in the past, where she discovers that when she was Merida’s age, Elinor had similar fears and aspirations. The chapters switch between following the young Elinor and the time-traveling Merida. The narrative feels somewhat bloated, but the pace is generally swift enough, propelled by Merida’s need to help her young mother escape her betrothal and maneuver her future parents into love so that she can return to the present. A subplot follows another consequence of Merida’s consumption of the witch’s spell, one involving a Viking threat. Meanwhile, the spell is inexorably physically transforming Merida, while moments of reflection show that she’s changing emotionally. The medieval Scottish setting is not richly developed, but some vocabulary adds to the atmosphere. Readers see Elinor develop royal responsibility but never learn why her own past hasn’t helped her understand her daughter. The story refers glancingly to the film, but the novel can stand alone.
An entertaining and undemanding entry in a popular series. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781368077958
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
