An auspicious beginning for a youthful sci-fi romp.
An outcast seventh-grade boy travels to another planet in Salinas’ debut novel.
Trevor was born during a supernova. Now 13, he’s an unpopular kid in Vasher Middle and High School; he’s small, awkward and has only one true friend. During a seventh-grade field trip, his school bus plummets 100 feet into a lake. Everyone escapes the wreck except Trevor, who seemingly spends a half-hour completely submerged in the freezing water. During this time, however, he’s transported to another planet. There, he meets a woman named Natalia and a mysterious figure named Alix who talk to him at length about the cosmos. Later, after Trevor washes ashore, he tries to share his strange story with a few classmates, who then torment him; even his good friend, AB, is dumbfounded and confused by his tale. As Trevor navigates a life of adolescent gossip, fights, crushes and cafeteria hijinks, two scientists, Novaldi and Wexler, work on a strange dream-extraction project that uses children as their subjects. Meanwhile, in a nearby junkyard, a metal monster mysteriously emerges from the rubble. It’s an imaginative, intriguing tale, but since this book is the first of a trilogy, it leaves many crucial questions unanswered. For example, why does Trevor have excruciating headaches, and how does he fit into the scientists’ goal of mapping out the entire universe? The next installment is apparently essential to understanding the story, and while this first chapter will certainly stoke readers’ imaginations, it’s incomplete, at best. It attempts to blend high school mishaps with sci-fi intrigue, but as a result, the scientific side of the story suffers. Some secondary characters, such as Alix and Natalia, remain underdeveloped, and their purpose in Trevor’s life remains a question mark. Overall, the story holds promise, but the next chapter is sorely needed.
An auspicious beginning for a youthful sci-fi romp.Pub Date: April 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1470183196
Page Count: 209
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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