While the storyline is more than a little convoluted, the well-choreographed, thematically powerful conclusion, coupled with...
This action-packed, breakneck-paced novel featuring a duo of lovestruck teenaged protagonists is a wildly imaginative young-adult apocalyptic thriller that also utilizes elements of science fiction, fantasy, folklore, mythology and romance.
Set in a near-future Chicago in the midst of a pandemic that has spread throughout the world, killing untold thousands of people with an unstoppable “super-cancer,” the story revolves around Olivya Wright-Ono, a 15-year-old girl with psychic abilities that allow her to see people’s auras. Olivya desperately wants to get to know a mysterious boy named Mikah that she met in V-class, the virtual school she attends. But all of her free time is spent helping her mother run a hospice that’s always full. Olivya and Mikah decide to meet in the middle of the night at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and, amid the bloody chaos of the apocalypse, the two find love; “[T]he place where their lips touched became the world, the galaxy, the universe.” After Mikah reveals that he isn’t exactly human, the two teens come to realize that only they can stop the looming destruction of humankind—and, ultimately, the entire universe. The diversity of narrative elements and historical references—invading aliens, dragons, angels, cyber-golems, the Great Chicago Fire, Mount Vesuvius, the minotaur, Lilith, demon hybrids, living star ships, etc.—while entertaining, at times overshadows the main storyline and negatively affects the novel’s fluidity. But the irreverent dialogue puts a lighthearted young-adult spin on the apocalyptic happenings; lines such as “[I]t seemed perfectly natural to have a god-dude just chillin’ in her room,” and “[T]hat psychotic gash of a smile wasn’t just out of character, it was absolute creepsville” inject wit and levity into the somber storyline. Ultimately, this is a novel about belief—believing in yourself, your friends, your family and the future—“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.”
While the storyline is more than a little convoluted, the well-choreographed, thematically powerful conclusion, coupled with the deeply developed characters of Olivya and Mikah, make this a memorable read.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-1600431029
Page Count: -
Publisher: Parker
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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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