In the end, choppy prose and the present tense make this moody, dreamlike tale of a special girl in a religious dystopia...
A young woman comes of age in an isolated community with stifling codes of conduct.
Emmeline, not quite 16, lives in a settlement of 600-odd people huddled in hungry solitude in the frozen north. With her birthday approaching, Emmeline isn’t looking forward to her coming-of-age, when leering Brother Stockham of the settlement’s leadership will begin to court her in earnest. Disabled, suffering from chronic pain, prone to self-harm and Stained by the Wayward actions of her long-dead grandma’am, Emmeline should be grateful for Brother Stockham’s attentions, but she prefers Kane, a quiet, handsome boy her own age. Perhaps her dreams will lead her to the Lost People and win her the respect she needs to choose her own partner. This slightly magical alternate history features the Canadian prairie as an unpeopled wilderness save for this mix of Francophones, Anglophones, and trilingual mixed-race Métis who speak French, English and First People’s languages such as Cree and M’ikmaq. Worldbuilding suffers despite its potential. Nonsensically, after five generations, the settlement’s people haven’t managed to form a mutually intelligible pidgin, and the language groups don’t mix (except when they do) and don’t understand one another’s languages (but seem to have no problem doing so).
In the end, choppy prose and the present tense make this moody, dreamlike tale of a special girl in a religious dystopia read just like all the others . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1235-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama
An illegitimate girl who hopes to find her creative passion may be connected to another kingdom’s magical history.
At 10, white, orphaned Brienna was brought to Magnalia House. For the last seven years she’s studied to become an arden, an apprentice passion, with the goal of finding her patron. The arden-sisters study art, dramatics, music, wit, and knowledge; Brienna, who has no true vocation, has eccentrically studied in all the fields. Though she doesn’t truly belong among the talented (and somewhat racially diverse) noble girls of Magnalia House, they are her beloved friends. Perhaps once she’s passioned, she can even act on her romantic feelings for the white knowledge master. But Brienna’s having strange visions lately; could they be ancestral memories of an unknown forbear from the neighboring country? What with romance, jealousy, family drama, betrayals, ancient magical history, and characters with multiple secret identities, there’s a nigh-constant pitch of throbbing…well, passion. A voice is like “tamed thunder,” and hair is like “a stream of silver.” Malapropisms abound (“punctures of laughter”; “her beauty warbled by the mullioned windows”). Oddly, most of the shocking revelations of back story are openly detailed in the lengthy family trees at the novel’s opening.
There’s some originality here, though it’s hard to unearth amid all the melodrama . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-247134-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
The Salt trilogy closes with a third generation of children fighting petty but dangerous evils. Hana, a girl from the city's wretched Bawdhouse Burrow, is orphaned when her mother is burned as a witch. Ben grows up far from the city, raised by his grandparents Pearl and Hari in the idyllic village from Gool (2010). When Hana flees the city, she brings with her a terrifying message for those outside its darkness: The Limping Man is coming. He has the terrible power to make people love him even as he torments them, and he plans to wipe out all who stand against him. Since most of the outsiders—Ben's family, the forest Dwellers and "the people without a name"—have mental powers, the Limping Man intends to massacre them. Ben and Hana, along with their allies, must find the Limping Man's secret in order to save their own lives and homes. Ben and Hana’s victories, like those of their parents and grandparents, are local. Even if they do defeat the Limping Man, they cannot vanquish evil from the world; life in the burrows will likely continue to be nasty, brutish and short. The heroes' personalities are defined by their harsh environments, but they reach beyond those limitations. Fantasy heroes who can save only themselves and their loved ones are a welcome change from the usual. (Fantasy. 13-15)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55469-216-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
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