An interesting but ultimately unsatisfying experiment in form.
Why did an 18-year-old artist fall from an overpass in New York City in the middle of the night?
This “investigative” novel reveals the back story to Addison’s meteoric rise from small-town life to the art world’s it girl. Griffin is a character in her own novel as a reporter intent on getting to the bottom of the artist’s death. Addy had always shown a raw talent mixed with a magnetic personality that repelled people as often as it drew them to her. Haunted by voices, on anti-psychotic drugs after attempting suicide, Addy jumped at the chance to attend art school in New York when a video of her swinging from a chandelier, “drunk on fear,” went viral. Swept up in a frenzy of activity, in and out of love, she somehow found time to showcase her creative genius. Snippets of interviews sprinkled with color photographs and paintings form a portrait of a sassy and troubled young woman. The novel’s effectiveness as a tongue-in-cheek indictment of the shallowness of contemporary cultural life is undermined by an overreliance on stereotypes: the philandering father, clueless mother, aggressive agent, gay roommate, and most gratuitous of all, the family’s Hawaiian neighbors, who ask their shaman to perform a ritual of harmonic healing, recognizing that the “spirit here’s been troubled for a real long time.”
An interesting but ultimately unsatisfying experiment in form. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61695-360-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A powerful story of family, belonging, and identity interlaced with thriller elements.
A wary teen wonders if she should run when people come looking for her.
Lucy Smith was raised by her white father, who said little about her mother. Following his death and her stepmother’s abandonment, Lucy entered the foster care system at 14. Her stepmother revealed that Lucy’s birth mom was Native American, but her social worker urged her to keep that quiet. Battered by her time in the foster care system, it’s no wonder that 18-year-old Lucy is cautious when she’s approached by a man who says he’s an attorney who helps Native American foster kids connect with their families and communities. He introduces her to a friend who reveals to Lucy that she knows her Ojibwe maternal relatives—but a wary Lucy refuses her offer to learn more. Someone is stalking her, after all, and the FBI is investigating the bomb that went off in the diner where she worked—an event she’s sure targeted her. This stand-alone from bestseller Boulley, who’s an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, includes characters her fans will recognize from previous works. The action scenes are mediated by ruminations on the failings of the foster care system and strong portrayals of Lucy’s relationship with her father and her complicated identity. Ardent book lover Lucy is a sympathetic narrator whose strong sense of justice is coupled with a deep acceptance of others.
A powerful story of family, belonging, and identity interlaced with thriller elements. (content warning, author’s note) (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328533
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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