Interesting but befuddled.
A transplanted Kansas teen tries to make sense of a brutal murder in Brashear’s debut.
Sixteen-year-old Carly narrates the story of a murder that gripped the small Kansas town of Holcomb in 1959, when Herb and Bonnie Clutter, along with their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon, were killed without obvious motive. Truman Capote would immortalize the subsequent manhunt and trial in his masterpiece In Cold Blood. Brashear chooses to tell the story from the perspective of a presumably fictional white girl who wanted to be—but wasn’t quite—Nancy’s friend. Ex–New Yorker Carly searches for evidence, going so far as to hold a séance at the scene of the crime; she’s interrogated by police and, like everyone else in the town, interviewed by Capote. Kansan Brashear writes smoothly, but her novel is problematic on several fronts. Carly never emerges with a clear motive for her snooping, uncovering nothing of value, and her personal narrative arc seems slight. Worse, modern teens aren’t likely to understand that this is a retelling of a nearly 60-year-old crime story. Without background, Capote and his female friend, Nelle Lee (later author of To Kill a Mockingbird), seem like odd distractions from the main narrative. There’s no author’s note to separate fact from fiction or to inform readers what happened after the trial, and without context the story doesn’t really hold up on its own.
Interesting but befuddled. (map) (Historical fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61695-683-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Chilling and suspenseful, with just the right number of twists.
If your friend’s dead body falls in the woods and nobody is around to see which of you pulled the trigger, what will your story be?
In an after-party haze of booze and drugs, five white, wealthy best friends go hunting in the River Point woods—only four return. With one of the boys, Grant, shot dead in an apparent accident and no one willing to admit responsibility, Logan, Henry, John Michael, and Shep vow to keep silent in order to protect their remaining group and the killer among them. But secrets have a way of burrowing through bonds, and the tightknit foursome, dubbed the River Point Boys, has already started to unravel. Meanwhile, budding photojournalist and white senior Kate Marino is interning at the district attorney’s office, where her boss is assigned the River Point case. The DA wants the case to disappear quietly, but Kate is determined see justice done. As she assists with examining the boys’ behavior during interrogations and in person, she discovers that nothing about the case, the suspects, or even her own connection to the boys is what it seems. The narration alternates between Kate’s fervent suspicions and a River Point Boy’s cold manipulation, leaving readers to wade through the many vengeful motives that spill from a wellspring of affluence, privilege, and corruption.
Chilling and suspenseful, with just the right number of twists. (Mystery. 13-17)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-3089-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
An overall entertaining read.
In this sequel to The Similars (2018), tensions rise as the villains reveal a ploy to exact revenge on the Ten and their families and ultimately take over the world.
When Emma Chance returns to her elite boarding school, Darkwood Academy, for her senior year, things are different: Her best friend, Ollie Ward, is back while Levi Gravelle, Ollie’s clone and Emma’s love interest, has been imprisoned on Castor Island. More importantly, Emma is coming to terms with the contents of a letter from Gravelle which states that she is Eden, a Similar created to replace the original Emma, who died as a child. To complicate matters further, other clones—who are not Similars—infiltrate Darkwood, and Emma and her friends uncover a plot that threatens not only the lives of everyone they care about, but also the world as they know it. Hanover wastes no time delving right into the action; readers unfamiliar with the first book may get lost. This duology closer is largely predictable and often filled with loopholes, but the fast-paced narrative and one unexpected plot twist make for an engaging ride. As before, most of the primary characters read as white, and supporting characters remain underdeveloped. Despite its flaws and often implausible turns of events, the novel calls attention to larger questions of identity, selfhood, and what it means to be human.
An overall entertaining read. (Dystopia. 13-16)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-6513-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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