Again, as in The Haunting (1982), New Zealand writer Mahy proves that all-out supernatural stories can still be written with intelligence, humor, and a fearful intensity that never descends into pretentious murk or lurid sensationalism. Laura, 14, living with divorced Mum (a bookstore manager) and little brother Jacko in a small New Zealand town, is a "sensitive." She gets "warnings" when big disturbances—like her parents' divorce—are imminent. She has the ability to take one look at older schoolmate Sorensen Carlisle and know that he's a witch. And when an old junk-store owner named Carmody Braque playfully stamps Jacko's hand with a smiling replica of Braque's own face, it's Laura who soon realizes that something ghastly has happened: "the stamp was part of him now, more than a tattoo—a sort of parasite picture tunneling its way deeper and deeper, feeding itself as it went." Jacko falls ill, then becomes seriously, mysteriously sick, wasting away, comatose, in a hospital bed. Laura's distraught mother, now growing closer to a librariansuitor, can't even listen to her daughter's ideas about the supernatural causes of Jacko's decline. So Laura desperately turns for help to "Sorry" Carlisle, who lives in a forbidding ancestral manse with his mother and grandmother—good witches who tried (in vain) to give Sorry a normal life away from magic. At first the Carlisles are cautious, distant, slow to admit their witchly powers; Sorry, deeply ambivalent about witch-hood, is sarcastic, sexually teasing. But eventually they agree to guide Laura in her battle for Jacko's life against Carmody Braque, a demon who must feed on human souls and bodies. The first step? Laura must make the "changeover" into witch-hood—something her psychic sensibility makes possible. (The visionary ritual involved is a perfect mix of the chilling and the comic, with Laura taking pot-shots at the poor literary quality of Sorry's chants.) Then, with moral support from Sorry, Laura must have a one-on-one confrontation with demon Braque, hiding her new witch-hood behind dark glasses and stamping his hand with a sign of her power. And finally, after Braque's Oz-style annihilation ("he continued to change back through the centuries of stolen life until his clothes collapsed around what at first appeared to be a rotting, heaving mass"), Laura can celebrate Jacko's recovery—and her own recovery from "a secret illness no one had ever completely recognized or been able to cure": the post-divorce hatred of her father, the jealousy of her mother's new boyfriend. Mahy thus invests the occult evils here with a metaphorical, psychological undertow; at the same time, however, while filling out all the characters (including the witches) with textured charm, she never stints on thoroughgoing creeps and scares. In sum: the best supernatural YA fiction around, with Stephen King power and Mahy's own class and polish.
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1984
ISBN: 0007155018
Page Count: 285
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1984
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring.
When Death-Cast doesn’t call, fate intertwines the lives of two boys, both haunted by their pasts and with futures they can’t escape.
In this third installment of the series that opened with 2017’s They Both Die at the End, Paz Dario waits every night for Death-Cast to call—as it should have for his father nearly 10 years ago, when Paz shot him to save his mother’s life. But the call never comes. Death-Cast killed Paz’s dreams of an acting career: No one will hire him now because the world sees him as a villain. When Paz tries (not for the first time) to put an end to his suffering, an unexpected encounter with Alano Rosa, the heir of Death-Cast, stops him. Both in a place of desperation, Alano and Paz sign a contract to live for Begin Days instead of waiting for their End Days. As suspenseful and emotionally wrenching as the previous titles in the series, this new installment explores heavy themes of abuse, mental health, self-harm, and suicide. Paz grapples with a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Silvera surrounds Alano and Paz with a web of complex relationships. Although the protagonists fall fast for one another and form a deep connection over Alano’s desire to support Paz, Silvera emphasizes the importance of professional help. Both Alano and Paz have Puerto Rican heritage. The cliffhanger ending promises more to come.
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring. (content warning, resources) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780063240858
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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