Joyful and hopeful.
A skateboarder desperately wants to avoid the physical changes of young adulthood.
Pepper Mint loves skateboarding and her vampire dog, Shroom. She doesn’t love her mother’s pestering her to become a full vampire like her parents. Pepper doesn’t want to change, though she adores having strap-on wings. Human skaters falsely believe she has a physiological advantage (though she’s avoiding changing partly to avoid the increased strength that would make all her hard-won skills feel “irrelevant”). The B+ juice supplement that helps her minimize real blood consumption is classed as performance-enhancing, so she can’t compete. Instead of going full vamp at the vampire ball as her mother requested, Pepper sneaks off and befriends human waiter and art student Ana, who draws Pepper skating with her wings. Pepper’s half brother, Jeb, who’s always hustling, sees a business opportunity: turning Ana’s art into a vampire-themed skateboard brand. But the grind of the business wears Pepper down, damaging her trust in Jeb and growing closeness with Ana. Despite vast gulfs separating what they each want, the three eventually learn to support one another’s choices. Attractive panels in pale blue, pink, lavender, and white evoke the transgender flag, reinforcing the metaphor of delaying puberty to avoid becoming “crystallized” in one form. This affirming story questions and creatively redefines “coming of age” in ways that will speak to many readers. Black-haired Pepper has light skin, dark-skinned Jeb has Afro-textured hair, and Ana has medium-toned skin and light hair.
Joyful and hopeful. (Graphic paranormal. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781665970471
Page Count: 224
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting supernatural mystery with a pair of brave protagonists.
The disappearance of a child unveils what lies hiding in the woods at the edge of a small town.
There are all sorts of stories about Picnic, Illinois, but it’s not until her toddler cousin, Madison, goes missing from her crib one night that 15-year-old Luce starts to believe them—and especially when she notices a pair of glowing, wolflike eyes through the windows of her house. To everybody’s relief, Madison is returned to her crib, seemingly safe and sound, soon after she vanished, but Luce and the child’s mother notice discomfiting differences in the 2-year-old. And yet, no one else seems to give credence to their concerns. Luce, prompted by a teacher, starts to research Picnic’s history and the many disappearances—and sudden reappearances—of baby girls, going back decades. Meanwhile, deep in the woods, Fanya, who narrates alternating chapters, tends to the baby girl and prepares for the ritual to welcome her as part of her pack when the full moon comes. As Luce’s and Fanya’s stories converge, so do past and present in Lund’s atmospheric novel. The story borrows elements from South Slavic lore about women who turn into animals to tell an affecting tale about small-town secrets, wronged people, and the bravery of two girls bent on getting to the truth in order to save lives. All characters are assumed White.
An affecting supernatural mystery with a pair of brave protagonists. (Paranormal thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35109-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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