A bit heavy on lessons, but readers will have fun getting there.
A middle schooler runs for class president with help from an unusual campaign adviser—his future self.
Readers with overachieving older sibs will feel for Noah Nicholson, who’s obsessed with following in the footsteps of his valedictorian older brother, now a Harvard freshman, although Noah’s at best an average student. Also, despite strenuous campaigning, he hasn’t a prayer of winning the upcoming class president election—until, that is, a shocking meeting with his doppelgänger. Future Noah informs him that, thanks to the time machine their brilliant scientist parents are about to whip up, he’s come back from next week and can guide him to victory—if present-day Noah follows certain instructions to the letter. Though odd, those instructions prove so bizarrely effective in earning him support from the in crowd that he barely notices that he’s failing math and alienating longtime friends. But just before everything collapses in one massively humiliating tangle, Noah (rightly) begins to suspect that his future self is hiding something. The author delivers the ensuing round of confessions, revelations, and frank self-analysis with a heavy hand, but all of this does leave Noah able to embrace his own distinctive mix of qualities and abilities and mend the personal and academic fences he’s heedlessly trampled. López draws expressive faces, allowing characterization to come through clearly in the illustrations. Noah and his family present white; there is ethnic diversity among supporting characters.
A bit heavy on lessons, but readers will have fun getting there. (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780316553186
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Ponderous and protracted, with more work needed on both the world and the characters.
Two young teens with special powers face an ancient evil rising from the very heart of the Tinvali Empire in this doorstopping series opener.
Pursued by ruthless agents eager to exploit her mysterious ability to read peoples’ true feelings, Arden—eventually, after many chapters alternating between dual narrators—links up with foundling Mako, a budding music mage who’s carefully hiding the fact that he’s invited an invisible smooth-talking trickster spirit named Narrix to be his lifelong guardian. It seems that some of Narrix’s fellow spirits may be even nastier—and there are ominous hints that they might be sneaking back into the world. Several of Arden’s adventures do more to bulk up the page count than advance the plot in any meaningful way, and though (like many of Mull’s protagonists) she’s a dab hand at snarky banter, she otherwise comes off as a rather wooden character. Readers may find Mako’s journey and conflicts more absorbing, as he struggles to balance the joy of blossoming into an outstanding warrior under Narrix’s tutelage with the sneaking suspicion he’s made a bad choice of tutor. Whether his concerns are valid or not remains to be seen. The leads present white.
Ponderous and protracted, with more work needed on both the world and the characters. (Fantasy. 10-13)Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9780593712047
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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