A lovely, smart, and haunting adventure tale.
In Gallagher’s debut YA novel, a teenage boy in Queens, New York, meets a young woman from a mysterious culture who changes his outlook on life.
James Ward leads a fairly everyday American life with a quiet family, a few friends, a few bullies, and the usual high school workload. But one day, he meets a strange teenage Irish girl named Cornelia Parsons, who lives nearby with her old-fashioned aunt, Vivien Widdershins. Almost without him realizing it, his new acquaintances slowly initiate him into a hidden world involving tribes of Celtic travelers, itinerant people with a long, secret history and laws, language, and lifestyles that are uniquely their own. Over the course of his high school year, James learns more about the travelers and becomes fascinated by their culture’s blend of rough criminality, clannish insularity, and poetic beauty. He’s soon drawn into Vivien’s struggle to establish her title as queen of the traveler people, and he becomes willing to confront great dangers. Along the way, James learns life lessons and more about his own background as he heeds the call of a new, romantic worldview. The story is highly engaging, with a varied array of nostalgic touches from different countries and periods. As a result, though, it’s sometimes difficult to gauge exactly when the story takes place, although it appears to be set in modern times. This nostalgic tone is clearly the author’s intention, and she even has characters allude to it in dialogue: “ ‘Reminiscences,” said Cornelia, rolling her R. ‘Nostalgia. What we do best.’ ” The various players are quietly but richly delineated, and their conversations ring true; James and Cornelia’s relationship is particularly strong. Indeed, the plot often takes a back seat to character development and exploration of the travelers’ secret world. This is a welcome choice, however, as Gallagher often handles it deftly. That said, readers may find themselves slowed down at times by the liberal sprinkling of pidgin English, Gaelic, Latin, and French words, used for color and literary effect.
A lovely, smart, and haunting adventure tale.Pub Date: April 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-60489-190-4
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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