An often mesmerizing end-of-the-world adventure.
In this debut novel set in a post-apocalyptic future, a young woman struggles to uncover the truth about her heritage.
A woman named Root remembers how she always felt different from the other people in her village. She was the blind daughter of a “weaver”—a revered village herbalist and wise woman—and she had a penchant for asking unwanted questions. According to village beliefs, to break from tradition and attempt to “remake the World That Is” would have devastating results. Many suspect that Root had a strange illness known as “the Nothing” within her—a condition that could eventually cause a person to transform into a savage, bestial “chimera.” To prevent this transformation, those thought to suffer from the Nothing were given a sedative drink and then burned alive in the Goodafter Pit. Root was 17 when she started hearing a voice in her head and soon gained extraordinary abilities. Her resulting flight set her on a path to discovering the true origins of the World That Is, which centers on a cataclysmic event known as the Reckoning. Crafty surprises abound in this debut novel as Giesler’s story switches between Root’s narration of the story of her life, framed as a presentation to a gathering of listeners, and the journal of her ancestor Ruth Troyer, who was alive during the initial days of the Reckoning. Giesler does an excellent job of connecting Root’s modern perspective and Ruth’s past knowledge to the rustic setting of the reconstructed civilization. The author also pays close attention to the development of language, religion, and cultural ceremonies across the centuries, resulting in some phenomenal worldbuilding. Root is a feisty, compelling narrator, and although some of her folksy asides are occasionally awkward, her monologue is full of appealing personality.
An often mesmerizing end-of-the-world adventure.Pub Date: June 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73356-761-9
Page Count: 552
Publisher: Humble Quill LLC
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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
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