A lighthearted middle-grade adventure filled with infectious enthusiasm.
A young video gamer competes in an interdimensional tournament in Purbaugh’s middle-grade debut novel.
When 12-year-old Tom Hock goes to San Diego’s Comic-Con—home to all things comic-book, video game, science-fiction and fantasy-related—he stumbles into a world beyond even his fertile imagination. His clutch performance in a mysterious arcade game wins him a ticket to participate in a real, live role-playing competition, battling monsters on the other side of an interdimensional portal in the convention center’s basement. Conceived by a powerful, unknown Creator, it's a game in which teenage human players compete to entertain the inhuman denizens of the Monster Realm. The winner will be crowned Multidimensional Game Master, but the losers must forfeit their souls to the game itself. As if those stakes weren’t high enough, the Creator has given the game its own insidious schemes for victory, and all of San Diego might be in danger if Tom—also known as “Combat Boy”—can’t defeat the bosses and assemble the fabled Monster Token. For help, he relies on his hapless older brother Joey, who tends toward hysteria and self-indulgence, and Dark Pixy, a fellow gamer who’s already lost her soul and wants desperately to win it back. Purbaugh draws these characters with affection and humor, providing a human center to the virtual setting. Although she offers some fun additions to a familiar genre, she wastes no time with unnecessary worldbuilding; instead, she assumes that her audience is familiar enough with fantasy and gaming tropes to dive straight into the costumes and swordplay. Just as some gamers love immersion while others simply want to grind through levels full of baddies, Purbagh seems happiest when charging through her chapters, leaving a trail of vanquished trolls and other minions in her wake. As a result, the story is fast-paced and there’s just enough at stake to keep the tension taut. Like the video games that the author takes as her inspiration, the novel is a colorful, welcome distraction from the mundane struggles of the real world.
A lighthearted middle-grade adventure filled with infectious enthusiasm.Pub Date: July 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495314841
Page Count: 158
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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