More cathartic than captivating, a thoughtful piece about birth, death and everything in between.
Jess Walton witnesses life, death and seemingly magical events in this slow-moving novel that’s light on plot but heavy with philosophy.
After her great-aunt Edie dies, Jess inherits a bureau full of secrets. Though Jess had hoped for Edie’s piano so she could lose herself in music, when she discovers a glass flask hidden in the bureau, she takes it as an omen for her new baby brothers’ birth. Clem and Richie are conjoined twins, and Jess believes that the flask holds a spirit that will allow her to control the boys’ fates. With her mother and stepfather at the hospital, her grandmother mourning Edie’s death and her irritatingly exuberant friend Zoe preoccupied by a boy, Jess drifts through the stages of grief—both for Edie and, prematurely, for her newborn brothers. Jess’ behavior and experiences vacillate between magical realism and delusion, leaving the nature of the flask up to readers to determine. Just as Jess seeks meaning in coincidences, the novel strains to connect an intimate and specific situation with grand meditations on life, death, friendship and divine power. Rather than exploiting the conjoined twins for shock value, Singer goes to the opposite extreme, making them miraculous symbols of the interconnectedness of life.
More cathartic than captivating, a thoughtful piece about birth, death and everything in between. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0921-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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