The only thing Cady knows for sure is that someone wants to kill her.
“Take her out back and finish her off,” is one of the first things the 16-year-old hears when she comes to in an isolated cabin in the woods of Oregon. Suffering from amnesia, Cady doesn’t recall anything about her life, including where she’s from, who her family is or even the excruciating pain of having two fingernails torn off. But her body remembers enough martial arts to incapacitate her captor and escape. When she tries to contact the authorities, they believe she is an escaped patient from a local mental hospital. Is she an insane murderer, as news reports suggest? With no place to hide and everyone a potential liar (including herself), Cady races across the state, piecing together clues and scraps of memories, to try to figure out who she is in this thriller with nonstop twists and turns. Her only ally is Ty, a former homeless teen she meets at a brief fast-food stop. The possibility of biological warfare amps up the suspense, while short chapters and Cady’s direct, first-person narration make the Hollywood-blockbuster–like story pulsate. Although rushed, the ending stays true to the mood and consistent pacing of Cady’s plight. An adrenaline rush for reluctant readers. (Thriller. 14 & up)
Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9541-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
This compassionate and beautifully rendered novel packs an emotional punch
From death row, a young man navigates prison and writes to his best friend in this powerful work of realistic fiction.
A poignant story of loyalty, abuse, and poverty is woven throughout a narrative that alternates between flashbacks to Luke and Toby’s senior year of high school (presented from their perspectives in the third person) and the present-day experience of Luke’s incarceration (told in first person through his letters to Toby). This structure allows the novel to build a slow and gripping tension as it progresses, revealing the horrific events that led to Luke’s arrest only at the very end, as the other details of the boys’ lives naturally unfold. Both are seemingly white. The two struggle to guard their friendship fiercely even as Toby becomes sexually involved with a likable but troubled young woman and Luke falls for a different girl. The two have been lifelong friends, supporting each other through family struggles—Toby’s with a physically abusive father and Luke’s with a neglectful mother who leaves him playing a parental role to his two younger brothers. Readers will easily empathize with quiet, tightly controlled Luke, who’s college-bound on a wrestling scholarship, and goofy, self-effacing Toby.
This compassionate and beautifully rendered novel packs an emotional punch . (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249427-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Only marginally intriguing.
In a remote part of Utah, in a “temple of excellence,” the best of the best are recruited to nurture their talents.
Redemption Preparatory is a cross between the Vatican and a top-secret research facility: The school is rooted in Christian ideology (but very few students are Christian), Mass is compulsory, cameras capture everything, and “maintenance” workers carry Tasers. When talented poet Emma disappears, three students, distrusting of the school administration, launch their own investigation. Brilliant chemist Neesha believes Emma has run away to avoid taking the heat for the duo’s illegal drug enterprise. Her boyfriend, an athlete called Aiden, naturally wants to find her. Evan, a chess prodigy who relies on patterns and has difficulty processing social signals, believes he knows Emma better than anyone. While the school is an insidious character on its own and the big reveal is slightly psychologically disturbing, Evan’s positioning as a tragic hero with an uncertain fate—which is connected to his stalking of Emma (even before her disappearance)—is far more unsettling. The ’90s setting provides the backdrop for tongue-in-cheek technological references but doesn’t do anything for the plot. Student testimonials and voice-to-text transcripts punctuate the three-way third-person narration that alternates among Neesha, Evan, and Aiden. Emma, Aiden, and Evan are assumed to be white; Neesha is Indian. Students are from all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East.
Only marginally intriguing. (Mystery. 15-18)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-266203-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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