A satisfying bridge, setting up for the next in the series
Apollo’s mortifying punishment continues as he battles a notorious historical villain while in pursuit of an Oracle.
Apollo (still trapped in the body of a teenage boy) finds his way out of a terrifying underground labyrinth with his demigod master, green-thumbed Meg McCaffrey (she’s a daughter of Demeter), only to find himself in a tense Southern California desertscape. The state has been plagued with droughts and wildfires, and climate change isn’t the only thing to blame. As in most of Riordan’s mythology novels, Apollo and his friends must fight their way through a variety of challenges, meeting gods, monsters, and spirits along the way. In this installment the main allies are dryads, a welcome spot of green in the desert. Caligula (“Little Boots”) is a mastermind of unparalleled sadism. The captive Oracle Herophile contrasts effectively with the power and determination of Medea. “Power,” Apollo muses, “makes good people uneasy rather than joyful or boastful. That’s why good people so rarely rise to power.” He continues to grow as a sympathetic narrator, his egotism and vanity slowly giving way to humility and self-sacrifice. His flashes of vulnerability, especially around the reminder of his long-departed lover Hyacinthus, are endearing—but the constant deprecating references to his “flabby” and “softly curved…in all the wrong ways” reinforce tiresome body-image assumptions. The book assumes a white default, though some secondary characters are not white.
A satisfying bridge, setting up for the next in the series . (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4847-4643-1
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
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Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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