You might not learn to love the bomb, but you will love this book.
Truth and fiction blur after Laura Ratliff wins a walk-on role in a Hollywood nuclear disaster film set in her small town.
Living on the nukemap—one of the top Soviet nuclear targets in the U.S.—leaves Laura more than a little bit anxious. It’s 1984, her junior year of high school, and the threat of “Mutually Assured Destruction” is on everyone’s mind. To make matters worse, Laura’s mother (who is white like Laura) had an affair with and later married a black man. The scandal was the talk of Griffin Flat, Arkansas, population 8,000, but one good thing that came out of it was her stepbrother, Terrence. Since the divorce, Laura rarely sees her father, a member of a special Air Force squadron responsible for intercontinental ballistic missile sites. Things seem to be looking up after Laura wins a local radio contest and a small part in Eve of Destruction, bringing Terrence along as her invited guest. Then Laura’s father begins making strange phone calls. This tragicomic story of Laura and her motley crew is a page-turner from start to finish. Laura’s penchant for pop culture, history, and science trivia, presented in explanatory footnotes throughout, brings the late Cold War–era to life. A clever, superbly written, laugh-out-loud-hilarious story within a story and movie within a movie about nuclear war anxiety in small-town America.
You might not learn to love the bomb, but you will love this book. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61695-903-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come.
A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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