Ellipsis-laden dialogue makes even death-defying, CGI-ready adventures drag
Three teens are tricked into using their phenomenal cosmic powers for immoral purposes.
Quin, Shinobu and John are finally ready to be inducted into the secret society of Seekers. Though they are only teenagers, they have trained since they were children to fight with the Seeker weapon, the whipsword, and to avoid the dreaded mind-destroying disruptor. Somehow, horrifyingly, John fails his final test and is sent away. John, however, already knows the secret that's been kept from Quin and Shinobu: The Seekers are no heroes. Quin has spent her life desperate for her father's approval and is horrified to realize what a monster he's always been. With their lives toppled, the three would-be fighters are separated, traveling with magical speed from rural Scotland to a noir Hong Kong stocked with opium dens. The childhood friends are now at odds, though with chapters alternating with each protagonist, the characters have the opportunity to show all their perspectives. In an adventure packed with drug abuse, self-harm, amnesia and betrayal, one erstwhile Seeker aims to control another. It's a thinly drawn tangle of a setting, with portable televisions and cellphones alongside steampunk-style airships and sci-fi “airlifts.” Nor do the heroes escape lazy stereotyping. For biracial Shinobu, for example, becoming "more Japanese" translates to "things like manners and honor." A relationship triangle completes the picture (as it's packed with pseudo-sexual violence, it's difficult to call it a love triangle).
Ellipsis-laden dialogue makes even death-defying, CGI-ready adventures drag . (Science fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-74407-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s a built-in audience for the London sisters’ adventures, but beneath all the glitter is a bunch of blah.
Hardworking sisters face glamorous romantic and professional challenges in Los Angeles.
Approachable fashionista-next-door video bloggers Sophia and Ava London have built an impressive reputation as savvy guides to fashion, accessories and personal grooming and are thrilled to be moving up in their shared career. An award naming the tightknit sisters Best Webstars of the Year leads to a licensing deal for their own makeup line—London Calling—with LuxeLife Cosmetics, and now the hottest men in Los Angeles are falling at their feet. Ava begins dating paparazzi-bait–turned–doting boyfriend Liam Carlson (but she continues to enjoy flirtatious banter with Dalton, a fellow volunteer at the local animal shelter). Meanwhile, Sophia, “boytoxing” after being blindsided by a terrible breakup, finds herself torn between wealthy smoothie Hunter Ralston and gorgeous Italian bartender-sculptor Giovanni. The Fowlers—who, like their protagonists, are beauty-and-fashion video bloggers—let their otherwise-effervescent modern fairy tale of sisterly love and self-actualization get bogged down in a dreary subplot of sibling separation anxiety and jealousy, basing it on the flimsiest of serial miscommunications and resolving it in a single paragraph. A last-chapter twist threatens the sisters’ reputation (and sets up a potential sequel), making the novel simply stop, rather than resolve.
There’s a built-in audience for the London sisters’ adventures, but beneath all the glitter is a bunch of blah. (Chick lit. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-00618-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Bloated and banal
Eyes will roll.
Ash is a scorned twin-blood Darkling—hybrid son of a human and a vampire—who hustles Haze, the drug that occurs naturally in Darkling venom, to the addicted human youth of Black City. Natalie is all human, daughter of Black City’s newly returned Emissary, local head of the national government that just won a bitter war against the Darklings and is committed to racial purity. When they meet under a bridge after Natalie slips her security detail, Natalie’s heart skips a beat. So does Ash’s, which is seriously weird, because twin-bloods’ hearts don’t beat at all. (Full Darklings have two hearts, one of the book’s many arbitrary and wholly unconvincing quirks of biology.) They meet again at school; they engage in pro forma animosity; they realize they love each other. While this narrative arc is entirely predictable, at least it is relatively short—but into the mix are thrown political upheaval, a murder mystery, a contagious wasting disease, brutality against animals, parental infidelity, steamy near-sex scenes, vivisection and public crucifixions, along with grindingly obvious parallels to Nazism and the American skinhead movement. Copious infodumps do not compensate for slipshod worldbuilding. There is as little nuance to the relationships as everything else; in addition to the ludicrous destiny that binds Natalie and Ash, friendships dissolve and come back together with all the subtlety of a preschool playground.
Bloated and banal . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15943-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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