A stirring, accessible tale that YA readers (and their parents) will enjoy.
Mabra’s (Crys Delchant and the Stone of Life, 2011, etc.) latest fantasy tells the story of a young girl blinded in a sacrificial rite who must face a religious cult hoping to complete the sacrifice she escaped.
Taylok, of the Nehwisna, inhabitants of a cavern called Rockworld, shows promise with the sling at a young age. When she’s only 3, Taylok and her mother are taken away to be sacrificed for the crime of her mother’s leaving her abusive husband. Taylok is saved by her friend Flint but must cope with her loss of eyesight. Years later, a high priest and his warriors are still searching for Taylok, a crusade spearheaded by Pebblic, the girl’s father. This novel, a prequel to a series that also features Taylok and Rockworld, begins with a foreword that gives a rundown of the Nehwisna’s world. It’s in the style of a textbook, and though the language is bloodless, it conveniently explains unfamiliar terminology—“turn” is an hour; “isa” is a day—as well as tidbits such as the people’s currency of crystals and shells. The bulk of the novel is a more standard narrative featuring an inspired protagonist whose blindness is hardly a detriment: She has an enhanced sense of hearing, is still adept at the sling and seizes the upper hand when people underestimate her. The story stays mostly with Taylok, whose world is defined by what she feels and hears; someone who betrays her has a “traitorous voice,” and in possibly the book’s best moment, she “witnesses” a sword fight between Flint and another man by listening to the clanging of metal. Though darker and not quite as epic as other YA fantasies—the action here is largely confined to the Eldar Temple and a nearby village—several morally enriching scenes help round it out: Taylok realizes that blindness isn’t an excuse for dishonesty (i.e., stealing), and the peddling of an illegal hallucinogenic drug seems as undignified as human sacrifice.
A stirring, accessible tale that YA readers (and their parents) will enjoy.Pub Date: March 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989156516
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Allen Mabra
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
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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