Many readers have seen this dusty, bleak future before, but a poignant journey with a tenacious protagonist exudes freshness.
In this dystopian thriller, a woman traverses a barren, treacherous wasteland in search of the only man with answers to her parents’ fate.
Soledad “Sol” Paz is a slave in the new world. Freelance traders took her from her family as a teen and sold her to Ernesto “Flaco” Guzmán. Guzmán’s a self-proclaimed revolutionary, leading an army against the Bullocks, who control much of the gas territory in Texas. Now a republic, Texas seceded from the United States when its natural gas replaced oil as a valuable commodity. The global economic collapse subsequently crushed the prospering republic, allowing for the Bullocks to seize power. With many citizens falling into poverty, Sol may be better off with Guzmán, even if he’s using her ability for his own benefit. She’s a reader, who, after chewing the weedy plant hierba, has heightened perception and can discern whether someone’s lying. But everything changes when she spots Abner Cunningham, her father’s apprentice whom Sol believed freelancers murdered along with her parents. Convinced they likewise survived, Sol escapes her camp with help from her friend Lela and smitten Rafa to track Abner. Their ultimate destination is Dallas, essentially the Bullocks’ capital, but they’ll have to brave demented religious zealots and the Bullocks’ technology, including attack drones, all with the hope that Sol will find her parents alive. The apocalyptic setting supplies a volatile climate, as Sol and company have no idea what to expect in the “unpoliced wastelands.” But Young (Juarez Square and Other Stories, 2015, etc.) intensifies his tale by making the good and bad guys nearly indistinguishable. Sol’s definitely a sympathetic protagonist, but Guzmán isn’t necessarily a villain. Lela, for one, sees him as her savior, rescuing her from the male-dominated boxing circuit, where she had no option but to succumb to men’s loathsome desires. At the same time, the cultist Fundies are unmistakably evil and a genuine threat to Sol, et. al. Dallas, as it turns out, is a place of revelation for Sol, who learns about her parents while fully realizing her potent gift, capable of seeing much more in others than simple lies.
Many readers have seen this dusty, bleak future before, but a poignant journey with a tenacious protagonist exudes freshness.Pub Date: April 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9908696-3-4
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Concordia Publishing House
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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