Readers might do well to take his advice.
When Tyler’s jerky sophomore-history teacher falsely accuses him of cheating, his somewhat psycho best friend Adam pays to have a voodoo doll made of their teacher.
Despite Tyler’s initial disbelief that the doll could be real, the two try it out the following day. Tyler sticks the doll’s leg with a pin, and his teacher’s leg flies off, spurting blood everywhere. The paramedics take him away. The two boys proceed to freak out—Adam much more so than Tyler, because then he has a voodoo doll made in Tyler’s image to blackmail him from spilling their story to the cops. All of this happens in the first 45 pages, and what ensues is a ridiculously stupid chase to rescue the doll from car-stealing thugs, a Rottweiler and a host of other bizarre and mildly humorous characters before Tyler meets an untimely demise. Strand’s best selling point is his ability to create authentic teen voices and craft wacky plot twists that baffle and surprise readers. The novel’s assets stop there, however. The characterizations are shaky. The plotting is haphazard and dissonant, and the author occasionally inserts his own commentary into the novel at various points, advising readers to “take a break and read the Hunger Games again.”
Readers might do well to take his advice. (Thriller. 12 & up)Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4022-6680-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take “till death do us part” as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel to The Scarlet Veil (2023).
Célie’s life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She’s been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can’t eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she’s become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what’s been broken—but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned.
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped. (Paranormal. 16-18)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063258808
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
© 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.
