A fine fantasy featuring giant-sized themes of empowerment and self-acceptance.
In the first entry of a YA fantasy series, outcast youth on a post-apocalyptic Earth uncover a scheme by shape-shifting cyborgs to foment war.
An apocalyptic conflict against rebellious robots and AIs resulted in “The Long Night,” during which human civilization made a grueling recovery from ruin and radiation. Now, after 374 years, four humanoid species survive in the former North America, which enforces Dune-like bans on computers and information technology. One faction is made up of unaltered humans; another, called Scavengers, are survivors who use recovered tech to keep their damaged bodies alive. They have an uneasy peace with elflike tree-dwellers called Dryads and with giant warriors who emerged from underground shelters much larger and stronger than most other humans. Brianna MineShaker is an adolescent girl giant who’s too independent-minded for her community’s tradition-bound social order. She’s forced to attend HarmonySchool, a last-chance remedial boarding school for problem children from all four groups. Although she disdains friendship, she connects with two kindred nonconformists: Rayel Juniperus, a colorful Dryad girl; and Davyd ShieldBreaker, a pacifist human boy. Cheverton, after writing multiple fantasy novels derived from Minecraft video gaming, such as Invasion of the Overworld (2014), forges a new path with this Giants of StoneHold series launch. Readers dreading a Hogwarts pastiche need not fear; almost instantly, the trio of characters are on the run due to a Scavenger conspiracy to infiltrate the school and trigger destructive war between the four groups. It’s not the first time this has happened according to chapter prologues from 150 years earlier that form a secondary running narrative; cleverly, there’s a flip-book illustration on each odd-numbered page that tells a third little tale. The story never stops moving, even if some moments on the young giant’s rocky path to self-realization seem a bit familiar. The lessons about being kind to animals also feel heavy-handed. Still, this imagined world is a robust one, and the nimble narrative will attract a YA audience craving action and role models.
A fine fantasy featuring giant-sized themes of empowerment and self-acceptance.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-69-006196-8
Page Count: 285
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection.
Broken people, complicated families, magic, and Faerie politics: Black’s back.
After the tumultuous ending to the last volume (marriage, exile, and the seeming collapse of all her plots), Jude finds herself in the human world, which lacks appeal despite a childhood spent longing to go back. The price of her upbringing becomes clear: A human raised in the multihued, multiformed, always capricious Faerie High Court by the man who killed her parents, trained for intrigue and combat, recruited to a spy organization, and ultimately the power behind the coup and the latest High King, Jude no longer understands how to exist happily in a world that isn’t full of magic and danger. A plea from her estranged twin sends her secretly back to Faerie, where things immediately come to a boil with Cardan (king, nemesis, love interest) and all the many political strands Jude has tugged on for the past two volumes. New readers will need to go back to The Cruel Prince (2018) to follow the complexities—political and personal side plots abound—but the legions of established fans will love every minute of this lushly described, tightly plotted trilogy closer. Jude might be traumatized and emotionally unhealthy, but she’s an antihero worth cheering on. There are few physical descriptions of humans and some queer representation.
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31042-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
An ornate and thrilling tale of loyalty and betrayal.
In this work that’s loosely based on Hamlet and the saga of the Boleyn family, a princess becomes entangled in power struggles and travels to a foreign kingdom on a deadly mission.
Princess Madalina Sinet prefers tending to her grave flowers—the magical (and occasionally carnivorous) blossoms that are unique to her kingdom of Radix—over getting drawn into her politically ambitious twin sister Inessa’s plotting and scheming. But after Inessa is sent to Acus, a more powerful neighboring kingdom, as the intended wife of Prince Aeric Capelian, Madalina’s life gets complicated. Inessa’s ghost appears to her, revealing that she’s been poisoned in Acus and asking Madalina to avenge her. Their father, who’s involved in machinations of his own, also has plans for Madalina: He wants her to become Prince Aeric’s replacement bride and then poison him on their wedding night. Madalina has always shied away from the Sinets’ violence and brutality, but she knows she must act in order to save her family and her kingdom—as long as she can avoid falling in love with Aeric. As elaborate and ambitious as the Boleyn family’s own intrigues, this gothic fantasy’s many twists and turns may occasionally leave readers feeling overwhelmed, but the roughly familiar storyline coupled with the fascinating worldbuilding makes this an engrossing read. Madalina and Inessa are cued as being fantasy-world biracial, and the Acusan people have light, sun-bleached hair.
An ornate and thrilling tale of loyalty and betrayal. (author’s note, glossary) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781682636497
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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