An earnest tale that doesn’t quite land.
A mysterious carnival upends Lilah’s life.
Sixteen-year-old Lilah’s parents and twin brother died in an accident years ago—and after her grandma dies, she ends up in foster care. She finds herself drawn to her new next-door neighbor Joey, also in foster care and a former childhood friend of her brother’s, and wonders where he’s disappearing to at night. At school, Lilah overhears a strange conversation between Joey and arrogant classmate Sebastian, another foster kid, and she decides to investigate. Following them into the woods, she discovers Carnival Nolianna, a place for young people like them who don’t have families. It has a portal that only opens for nine nights per year to outsiders and in a new location each time. If they’re one of the 10 visitors invited to stay on Halloween, then they won’t be able to leave for a year. Joey had desperately wanted to join this community until reconnecting with Lilah and being drawn to her. Lilah’s falling for him in turn and not so sure she trusts Sebastian, who’s intensely interested in her. The story suffers from a lack of coherent worldbuilding. The only fantastical elements are the carnival’s portal and some drugged carnival food which causes selective memory loss. The intriguing execution of the found-family trope is lessened by the superficial romance. Lilah and Sebastian are White; Joey has brown skin, and there is some diversity in background characters.
An earnest tale that doesn’t quite land. (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73365-346-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Green Place Books
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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