A multifaceted thriller with a powerful social message.
Residents of a small town experience a reckoning when a mysterious app leads a group of teens to a dead body.
The first time he plays Manifest Atlas, an app game that people claim can give you anything you ask for, Willie Eckles wants a sign. Life feels stagnant in rural Calico Springs, a predominantly white Missouri town, and Willie yearns for some direction. He’s mystified to find that the app delivers on his requests—albeit with a cryptic twist each time—but no one believes him, not even Bones, his older brother. Eventually, Willie convinces Bones and his friends (including Sarai from neighboring Lawton, a predominantly Black town) to play with him, but they get more than they bargained for when it leads them to the dead body of Sarai’s white stepfather, who was in a rare interracial marriage. Unconvinced by the authorities’ ruling out of foul play, Willie and his group begin an investigation that stirs up tensions in a community that doesn’t like people probing for answers. As Willie tests the limits of the game’s abilities, he finds that their small town holds darker secrets than he ever expected. Willie’s journey is one of awakening—opening his eyes to social problems and choosing to face that reality rather than turn from it. The page-turning suspense is a draw, but the book’s ultimate strength is its skillful exploration of racial injustice in rural America.
A multifaceted thriller with a powerful social message. (author’s note, further reading) (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780063160484
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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