A vibrant retelling.
A mysterious stranger captivates in this reimagining of a Robert Louis Stevenson tale.
Gabriel Utterson sets out as a student at the London School for Medical Studies determined to become a successful professional despite the discriminatory hiring practices of the Victorian era. He takes a room at a nearby boardinghouse for Black students run by kindhearted Miss Laurie. There he meets handsome fellow resident Henry Jekyll, whose father teaches at the university they both attend. Gabriel’s budding relationship with Henry causes much campus gossip, straining Dr. Jekyll’s already tenuous position as an underappreciated, often disrespected instructor. The whirlwind romance between Henry and Gabriel soon unravels due to the combined racism and homophobia pervading the medical school establishment. Amid scandalous hints of their affair, Henry’s father is fired, and both young men are expelled from the institution in disgrace. Henry becomes secretive—and an oddly familiar man named Hyde is spotted coming and going freely from the Jekyll home, sparking Gabriel’s jealousy and curiosity. He is taken on as law clerk by the lecherous Sir Danvers Carew, a powerful White man working in medical law, but Carew’s escalating harassment of Gabriel eventually leads to violence that sends Gabriel to a friend’s house for help. He follows a twisting path to uncovering Henry’s secret. Addressing invisibility, power, and passion, Bayron’s updated classic simmers with Gothic imagery, romance, and a robust exploration of what it means to be whole.
A vibrant retelling. (content warning, author’s note) (Historical mystery. 13-18)Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-83356-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
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