Compulsively readable; stands out among other works with similar premises.
Youthful offenders face a deadly reality show in a social media–driven future.
Sixteen-year-old Emerson Ness doesn’t know who lit a match while she carried out a robbery, but she was caught at the scene and faces arson and manslaughter charges. She’s offered a spot on a reality game show promising fame and freedom to the winner—and life in solitary for everyone else. Desperate to provide for her younger brother, Kester, a deaf tech prodigy, Emerson caves and accepts. In this future world, class is literally stratified: The poor, like the Nesses, live in the Burrows beneath the elite Topsiders’ homes, and riches are awarded based on one’s social media follower count. The game show, Retribution Island, hinges not just on challenges but on popularity; Emerson knows her only hope is competing well enough to avoid public votes, especially since some of her fellow competitors are polished Topsiders, rather than Burrowers who committed crimes of desperation driven by inequalities in the system. The social commentary, openly discussed and integral to the plot, never gets in the way of the action or the story’s flow. Once the show’s true nature is revealed, the brutal action hits in viscerally grotesque sequences. Even the less sympathetic competitors are humanized, with the book highlighting traumas. Emerson reads white; names signal some ethnic diversity in the supporting cast, and a fat character is portrayed in a body-positive way. The ending screams for a sequel.
Compulsively readable; stands out among other works with similar premises. (Dystopian. 12-18)Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781338891850
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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
A gripping tribute to resilience.
A girl with amnesia and a boy suspected of harming his girlfriend overcome adversity to find the answers they seek.
A 17-year-old girl wakes up in a ditch, disoriented and with no memory of who she is or what happened. Found by the Alton, Oregon, police, she is brought to the station. Soon after, Wayne Boone, a man claiming to be her father, shows up. He has photos of her on his phone and her high school ID card, with the name Mary Boone. Wayne convinces the police to release Mary into his custody. The more time Mary spends with Wayne, however, the weirder things get: He’s unaware of her food allergy, and as her memories start to return, they don’t conform with Wayne’s versions of her life. In the town of Washington City, across the Willamette River, Drew is in a bad place. His girlfriend, Lola, has disappeared, and Drew was the last person to see her. His adoptive dads and cousin are the only ones who support him; everyone else, including the sheriff, thinks he’s responsible for Lola’s disappearance. Intent on finding Lola, Drew finds help in an unlikely ally, Lola’s best friend, Autumn, who is the sheriff’s daughter. But will they find Lola in time? The two immersive storylines bring to life the trials and frustrations each main character faces in this debut, which is a thrilling delight right up to the unexpected and bittersweet conclusion. Most characters are cued white; one of Drew’s dads is Guatemalan.
A gripping tribute to resilience. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728270111
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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