In this debut YA novel, a teenage American girl goes back to Ireland to find the truth of who she is after she discovers a family secret and a new, supernatural ability.
When a sudden, debilitating illness places 17-year-old Cora Sandoval in the hospital, she wakes up with the unsettling power to see other people’s auras and judge their feelings by the colors she sees. She always sees herself, however, as glowing bright silver. To make things more confusing, Cora soon captures the attention of Finn, a handsome Irish exchange student who may be hiding secrets of his own. Unable to get any answers from her suspiciously tight-lipped father, Cora goes to Ireland to seek the truth, eventually uncovering the mystery of a special race called the Scintilla, of which her mother was a member. Scintilla are hunted by other beings called Arrazi, who gain power by taking other people’s life forces; this, it turns out, is what really happened to Cora’s mother, who vanished in Ireland when Cora was 5. Clark’s novel is laden with standard tropes: a bookish, unpopular heroine; a family secret; and, of course, a rakish, mysterious boy inexplicably drawn to the heroine. Yet these all provide a foundation for an intense story that expands on aspects of real history and mythology. Cora’s personality and deadpan humor pop off the page, as do the novel’s evocative, emotionally charged descriptions of people and places (“Do houses have memories, too? Can they recall the squeal of a little girl chasing after a grasshopper in the grass?”). Cora is an active heroine, using her aura-reading power, as well as a quickly developing ability to read the histories of objects, to traverse an unfamiliar country and discover illuminating treasures. The love story sometimes distracts from the plot, although it’s full of passion, as well as irrational jealousy when Cora meets a man with a silver aura like hers. However, it eventually becomes an integral part of the tale.
Despite typical paranormal teen traps, Clark’s novel is a powerful, heart-wrenching adventure.
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1622661459
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
