by Amy Neftzger ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2016
Engaging characters and an imaginative plot make for a satisfying read.
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Neftzger’s fantasy novel refreshes the conventions of the genre while meeting readers’ expectations of it.
As a lead fighter in the king’s war against “the sorcerer” and his shadows, Kelsey must obey her general’s orders and report back on the number of casualties in each battle. But when a usually mute shadow speaks to her, she knows something has changed. And another strange sight—an obscured figure with a shadow companion feeding pieces of parchment into a fire and whispering a strange spell-like poem into the flames—has her considering the rumors about a mysterious book that no one can read, one that supposedly holds the secret to winning the war. Although the general refuses to listen to her, Kelsey has resources outside the battlefield. Nicholas and his friends and teachers (and a talking gargoyle named Newton) from his old academy have gathered together by way of “scrying,” or peering into a magic bowl filled with water in which they can hear and sense but only sometimes see each other. Kelsey’s information gets the group wondering about how they might assist in the battle against the sorcerer’s illusions and deceptions, while Kelsey tries to decipher the words written on the parchment she steals from the strange figure. What they find will depend upon their understandings of magic, reality, and truth, and it will irrevocably alter each of them—and the world. Neftzger takes popular elements of modern fantasy—the battle between truth and artifice, a plucky yet troubled protagonist, a group of bookish friends, a talking nonhuman entity—and creates a new landscape that will delight genre fans. While the prose sometimes takes a stilted, expository tone, Neftzger often transcends it with fresh images: “What made everything worse were the burrs that blew onto the battlefield and stuck to the soldiers’ clothing. It was like a storm of little sticky balls that were somehow carried on the wind, but also heavy enough to weigh down the soldiers.” The climax, in particular, affirms the power of language and storytelling.
Engaging characters and an imaginative plot make for a satisfying read.Pub Date: March 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-940894-17-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Fog Ink
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Amy Neftzger
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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