The conclusion of the Eve trilogy begins with Genevieve trapped in the City of Sand.
Although her father has made himself the dictatorial king of The New America after a plague, Genevieve continues to side with the rebels determined to bring him down. To do so, she may have to murder her own father. Complicating matters, she’s in a loveless marriage to Charles but is pregnant by Caleb, the love of her life, who was killed in the previous book. Now, after failing in her attempt to poison her father, she escapes from the City of Sand (formerly Las Vegas) with girls she rescues from the prisonlike schools her father has established with the intention of forcibly impregnating them to boost the population. The story then takes readers on an exciting trek to “Califia,” although Carey never explains how the group moves so quickly on foot across the forbidding landscape, focusing instead on the threats they experience during their stopovers. When they reach San Francisco Bay, Genevieve suddenly decides to return to the City of Sand and complete the task of assassinating her father. Character development remains sketchy, although Genevieve’s relationship with her estranged but devoted husband could be interesting. The author doesn’t take up any themes such as societal freedom or individual liberty that might be provoked by the dystopian setting, focusing instead on entertainment value.
Shallow but exciting. (Dystopian romance. 12 & up)Pub Date: April 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-204857-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dystopic thriller joins the crowded shelves but doesn't distinguish itself.
Juliette was torn from her home and thrown into an asylum by The Reestablishment, a militaristic regime in control since an environmental catastrophe left society in ruins. Juliette’s journal holds her tortured thoughts in an attempt to repress memories of the horrific act that landed her in a cell. Mysteriously, Juliette’s touch kills. After months of isolation, her captors suddenly give her a cellmate—Adam, a drop-dead gorgeous guy. Adam, it turns out, is immune to her deadly touch. Unfortunately, he’s a soldier under orders from Warner, a power-hungry 19-year-old. But Adam belongs to a resistance movement; he helps Juliette escape to their stronghold, where she finds that she’s not the only one with superhuman abilities. The ending falls flat as the plot devolves into comic-book territory. Fast-paced action scenes convey imminent danger vividly, but there’s little sense of a broader world here. Overreliance on metaphor to express Juliette’s jaw-dropping surprise wears thin: “My mouth is sitting on my kneecaps. My eyebrows are dangling from the ceiling.” For all of her independence and superpowers, Juliette never moves beyond her role as a pawn in someone else’s schemes.
Part cautionary tale, part juicy love story, this will appeal to action and adventure fans who aren't yet sick of the genre. (Science fiction. 12 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-208548-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Beautifully written historical fiction about giddy, queer first love.
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Finally, the intersectional, lesbian, historical teen novel so many readers have been waiting for.
Lily Hu has spent all her life in San Francisco’s Chinatown, keeping mostly to her Chinese American community both in and out of school. As she makes her way through her teen years in the 1950s, she starts growing apart from her childhood friends as her passion for rockets and space exploration grows—along with her curiosity about a few blocks in the city that her parents have warned her to avoid. A budding relationship develops with her first White friend, Kathleen, and together they sneak out to the Telegraph Club lesbian bar, where they begin to explore their sexuality as well as their relationship to each other. Lo’s lovely, realistic, and queer-positive tale is a slow burn, following Lily’s own gradual realization of her sexuality while she learns how to code-switch between being ostensibly heterosexual Chinatown Lily and lesbian Telegraph Bar Lily. In this meticulously researched title, Lo skillfully layers rich details, such as how Lily has to deal with microaggressions from gay and straight women alike and how all of Chinatown has to be careful of the insidious threat of McCarthyism. Actual events, such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s 1943 visit to San Francisco, form a backdrop to this story of a journey toward finding one’s authentic self.
Beautifully written historical fiction about giddy, queer first love. (author’s note) (Historical romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-55525-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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