Satisfying if tropetastic coming-of-age, utterly spoiled by the appalling “noble savage” narrative
A space Western stars a frustrated would-be girl engineer taken by native raiders.
Rae Darling, 13, and her blonde, blue-eyed kid sister, Temple, live on a moon too small to have a name, where a spaceship packed with colonists crashed 30 years ago. All existence is hardscrabble on the punishingly hot, arid rock, and it's worse for girls. Among the religious prairie homesteaders, there's no room for a girl gadget-maker who's prone to creating a ruckus. Rae's troubles are put into perspective when she and Temple are captured in a raid by the Cheese, the scaled indigenous humanoids, whose warriors are "painted and shining, ready for raiding." The longer Rae is a captive, the more she grows to love these heathens for "their strength, their brutality, their fierce devotion." Rae (now She Who Cry the Most) is trained by One Who Talk Too Many Word and Strength of the Suns to become a warrior; soon she's donning war paint and wearing her long, dreadlocked hair in a raider's horsetail just like her black-eyed, bronze-scaled captors. Can impulsive, angry Rae have a life among people who "take pride in their viciousness" and slice the ears off attacked settlers? An ostensible moral about the evils of colonialism merely romanticizes the brutality of the superstitious local primitives.
Satisfying if tropetastic coming-of-age, utterly spoiled by the appalling “noble savage” narrative . (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-3626-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
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