Gwendolyn travels through a library of tropes and narrative conventions to fight world-controlling villains.
Gwendolyn Gray, whose vermilion hair stands out in a world where most folks are blond, is dissatisfied with her City. At the end of series opener The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray (2018), when she traveled into a fictional world of airship pirates, she’d destroyed the mind-controlling Lambents that kept her City docile. And yet, even without the mind control, the City is still a toxic place full of conformity. It’s almost a relief when the Faceless Gentlemen reappear and chase Gwendolyn back into magical worlds. This time, she ends up in Faeoria, where Titania and Oberon reign, and a human “inventress” with clockwork wings takes Gwendolyn under them. To save herself and her City from various wicked forces, Gwendolyn must control her depression, mania, and anxiety. (These are mostly portrayed as a “sickness of the spirit” she must learn to manage as normal mental illness, but they are tied uncomfortably into magic and metaphor as well). The inventress protects Gwendolyn through a series of magical training montages, then sends her out into the (overwhelmingly white) multiverse to fight the baddies. A smart-alecky narrator breaks the fourth wall like a wrecking ball, with frequent metafictional asides and unobtrusive fixation on the age of the 13-year-old protagonist.
Too many plot twists, arch narrative asides, and last-minute fortune reversals make this adventure plod. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63163-435-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
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BOOK REVIEW
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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Full-blown middle-volume-itis leaves this continuation of the tale of a teenage elf who has been genetically modified for so-far undisclosed purposes dead in the water.
As the page count burgeons, significant plot developments slow to a trickle. Thirteen-year-old Sophie manifests yet more magical powers while going head-to-head with hostile members of the Lost Cities Council and her own adoptive elvin father, Grady, over whether the clandestine Black Swan cabal, her apparent creators and (in the previous episode) kidnappers, are allies or enemies. Messenger tries to lighten the tone by dressing Sophie and her classmates at the Hogwarts-ian Foxfire Academy as mastodons for a silly opening ceremony and by having her care for an alicorn—a winged unicorn so magnificent that even its poop sparkles. It’s not enough; two sad memorial services, a trip to a dreary underground prison, a rash of adult characters succumbing to mental breakdowns and a frequently weepy protagonist who is increasingly shunned as “the girl who was taken” give the tale a soggy texture. Also, despite several cryptic clues and a late attack by hooded figures, neither the identity nor the agenda of the Black Swan comes closer to being revealed.
However tried and true, the Harry Potter–esque elements and set pieces don’t keep this cumbersome coming-of-age tale afloat, much less under way. (Fantasy 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4596-3
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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