Fans should just wait for Winter, coming in fall 2015.
Meyer takes a short break between books in the Lunar Chronicles to explore the back story of evil Queen Levana.
As the title suggests, here Meyer riffs on “Snow White,” positioning Levana as the wicked queen. As the novel opens, Princess Levana and her older sister prepare for the funeral of their assassinated parents. Levana chafes at the knowledge that her sister will take the throne—Levana is intelligent and politically engaged, while her lovely sister seems interested only in sexual conquest. The 15-year-old princess also yearns for kind, handsome guard Evret Hayle, who is unaccountably in love with his beautiful, pregnant wife. Physical beauty is something the scarred princess can achieve only by casting a Lunar glamour; fortunately, she is very skilled in the art. She is so adept, in fact, that she uses it to lure Evret to her bed and to the altar when his wife dies in childbirth; the only blot on her happiness is baby Winter, her stepdaughter—and her sister, and the Moon’s dwindling resources….With this book, Meyer sets herself a formidable challenge. Her overall story and the original fairy tale’s structure both demand that Levana end the book thoroughly evil, creating a deterministic, negative character arc. Although she strives to make Levana initially sympathetic, she must also plant the seeds of her cruelty and megalomania; the result is that Levana goes from merely bratty to out-and-out repellent. The author also deprives herself of the opportunity to play to her strengths: quick, cinematic changes in scene and chemistry between her characters. With virtually no action and no sparks flying, the plot slogs along to an end readers know already, leaving them free to notice Meyer’s malapropisms, grammatical errors and awkward metaphors.
Fans should just wait for Winter, coming in fall 2015. (Science fiction/fairy tale. 13 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-06055-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2015
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
A dark and gripping feminist tale.
A young woman faces her past to discover the truth about one of her nation’s heroes.
When Effy Sayre, the only female architecture student at her university in Llyr, wins the competition to design Hiraeth Manor for the estate of the late Emrys Myrddin, national literary figure and her favorite author, it is the perfect opportunity to leave behind a recent trauma. She arrives to find the cliffside estate is literally crumbling into the ocean, and she quickly realizes things may not be as they seem. Preston, an arrogant literature student, is also working at the estate, gathering materials for the university’s archives and questioning everything Effy knows about Myrddin. When Preston offers to include her name on his thesis—which may allow her to pursue the dream of studying literature that was frustrated by the university’s refusal to admit women literature students—Effy agrees to help him. He’s on a quest for answers about the source of Myrddin’s most famous work, Angharad, a romance about a cruel Fairy King who marries a mortal woman. Meanwhile, Myrddin’s son has secrets of his own. Preston and Effy start to suspect that Myrddin’s fairy tales may hold more truth than they realize. The Welsh-inspired setting is impressively atmospheric, and while some of the mythology ends up feeling extraneous, the worldbuilding is immersive and thoughtfully addresses misogyny and its effects on how history is written. Main characters are cued white.
A dark and gripping feminist tale. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780063211506
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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