A fast-paced adventure that will excite lovers of anime and comics, but one that trades wider appeal for complex mythology.
In Cheung’s novel, a man’s boring life is interrupted by a gang of immortal bounty hunters trying to take his soul.
Every day, Leon Zylo, “gets off work feeling a little more dead than the day before.” Even his beautiful, loving girlfriend, Rachel, and the tantalizing sights and sounds of Fortune City, the sprawling “megatropolis” where he lives, aren’t enough to combat the apathy brought on by his boring office job. One day, he’s awakened from his lethargic existence by loud bangs at his door. A stylish man named Kitsune informs him that he’s been “contracted.” A gang of “Baya,” known as the Immortal Aces, will be coming to kill him in 24 hours: “The last day of your life starts after the next sixty seconds,” Kitsune says. Leon receives an official-looking contract that explains the rules, but it doesn’t reveal what a Baya is or why this is all happening. He largely ignores it, and the next day, he finds himself the prey of a pack of “[s]ome super invincible league of assassins who dress like pompous jerks.” He struggles through daring street chases, hops on roofs, and evades his pursuers on speeding trains before realizing that the bounty they seek is more than his life itself—it is his very soul. Soon, even more dangerous hunters are drawn into the chase, and Leon makes a daring choice that leads him to the truth about the Baya and their mysterious powers. Cheung’s prose is reminiscent of a comic book: short, punchy sentences propel exciting moments of action and complement his amusing, pun-filled dialogue. The clever conceit at this thrill ride’s core—that the more Leon tries to stay alive, the more valuable his life becomes—turns the cat-and-mouse game into a concise metaphor for urban ennui. However, halfway through, Cheung boldly goes in a surprising new direction, developing the lore of the Baya and leaving behind some of the more intriguing and universal elements. The author continues to maintain an exciting pace, but something special gets lost when he delves too deep into the fantasy.
A fast-paced adventure that will excite lovers of anime and comics, but one that trades wider appeal for complex mythology.Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0692399125
Page Count: 404
Publisher: SmoothOperratus
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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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