Fresh and compelling.
A teenage girl must decide between normalcy and being true to herself.
Hattie Tilney has been a skeptic since her ghost-loving father died right before the family moved to Northanger Abbey boarding school, a hotbed for supposed paranormal activity where her mother became headmistress. All Hattie wants is to have a normal senior year with her friends and get into a good college, but when she’s assigned by her mom to be school ambassador to disarming transfer student Kit Morland, Hattie is horrified to find out that he is a ghost hunter on a scholarship from the National Paranormal Society of Investigators. Worse, Hattie must partner with Kit for their journalism class to investigate claims about paranormal activity at Northanger. Still grieving and determined to avoid anything to do with the paranormal world her dad loved, Hattie agrees to the project under one condition: Kit will try to prove the stories are true, and she will try to debunk them. It isn’t long before Hattie finds her feelings for Kit growing as he pulls her into exploring subjects she has avoided for several years. In her second novel inspired by a Jane Austen classic, Quain draws a realistic portrait of a young person struggling with loss, social pressures, and familial expectations. Readers need not be familiar with the original to appreciate this retelling with a supernatural twist. Main characters read White; there is some racial diversity in the supporting cast.
Fresh and compelling. (Paranormal romance. 13-18)Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781250865076
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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