An engaging, if flawed, YA time-travel tale.
In Gonzalez’s bold, imaginative young-adult debut sci-fi novel, a 17-year-old orphan discovers powers he never knew he had.
When he was a young boy, Gavin Hillstone’s loving adoptive mother was killed in a store shooting. Her husband, Jet, has always blamed Gavin for her death, and Gavin has suffered years of abuse at his hands. One day, after Jet nearly beats him to death, teenage Gavin discovers that he might still have living biological grandparents, and he journeys to Washington, D.C., to track them down. Once there, he learns why his grandparents put him up for adoption—and that his family has secret magical abilities. They’re photo travelers: people who can use any photograph as a portal to travel to the time and place depicted in the picture. One of their central principles, however, is to never change the past. Gavin also discovers that his family has enemies—another group of photo travelers known as the Peace Hunters, who feel that it’s morally justifiable to alter past events to make the world a better place. In the hands of a lesser author, this concept might have been a difficult sell, but Gonzalez grounds his novel in emotional reality, making it easy for readers to suspend disbelief during the fantastical portions. Gavin is a fully rounded character who seems a bit emotionally immature for his age at times, but his psychology is utterly believable—from the trauma associated with his abusive childhood home to his gradual acclimation to the prospect of reclaiming a family who loves him. Unfortunately, after a zippy, adventurous beginning and middle section, the novel comes a bit undone in its final act due to a plot hole and an unfortunate divergence into melodrama. Up until that point, however, the author delivers a well-paced fantasy story in a richly drawn world.
An engaging, if flawed, YA time-travel tale.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988891630
Page Count: 418
Publisher: Arthur J. Gonzalez
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2013
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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