A fast-paced, humorous adventure that brings out the true character of its protagonists.
When four Australian teenagers take a super-secret craft on a joyride, trouble ensues in this comic YA sci-fi novel.
For the last four years, 16-year-old Harry Newman has been spying on his father to learn more about his top-secret project at a remote Royal Australian Air Force base. On the pretext of researching a school project, Harry finagles his way in to the highly restricted Hangar GF1 along with his three best pals. The craft inside is like nothing they’ve seen, and Harry wants a closer look. His friends have varying motivations: Robbie Jones, is obsessed with flying planes; Max Palmieri wants to sell photos of the secret project, make a fortune, and then meet whom he considers to be the perfect woman: Paris Hilton. Jack Reedman, who has regular panic attacks, just doesn’t want to be left behind. Once onboard, though, the boys are at the mercy of Candy, the craft’s master computer: “What luck to have four unsuspecting teenagers to play with, and it wasn’t even Christmas,” it muses. The resulting trip takes the four friends far beyond what they’d dreamed the craft was capable of, and when they land, they stumble into an absurd yet dangerous situation. With the help of a local ally and their own wits, can they return home intact? Many elements in this debut novel for teens don’t bear close examination as good science, but this is no bother, as it’s all in fun. Brooks has a well-developed sense of the ridiculous, as when Candy torments the teenagers with her favorite song, “The Candy Man” from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. But despite the many absurdities, Brooks gives the foursome a chance to show their mettle; for example, Max belittles Jack frequently, but events eventually reveal Max to be the true coward. Similarly, Harry, whose restless, searching nature is always “prodding him to keep planning or moving forward,” manages to make use of his cleverness and perseverance in the here and now.
A fast-paced, humorous adventure that brings out the true character of its protagonists.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4834-9073-1
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2019
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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