An unforgettable opening scene, in which Amy watches her parents climb into glass boxes to be agonizingly frozen alive and then submits to being frozen herself, launches this riveting thriller about space travel, secrets, murder and Realpolitik. Amy’s family chooses cryogenics so they can be defrosted when the spaceship Godspeed completes its 300-year journey to a new planet. But en route, in space, Amy’s cryo-wires are unplugged early—almost lethally. She wakes to meet Elder, another teen, named for his leader-in-training position. Ironhanded commander Eldest refuses to teach Elder the critical details for running Godspeed, and in scrutinizing the deadly mystery of who’s unplugging the frozens, Elder and Amy uncover generations of devastating lies underpinning Godspeed’s on-board society. From the ship’s windowless metal walls and recycled-air full-farming ecosystem to the people’s carnal and oddly synchronized breeding Season, Revis’ extraordinary setting is credible and palpably claustrophobic. The two teens’ alternating viewpoints, both in first person, divulge information to readers bit by tension-filled bit. Wherever the series goes from here, this opener leaves an indelible imprint. (Science fiction. 14 & up)
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59514-397-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
A visceral, weighty read.
An unflinching portrayal of the complexities of one teenager’s journey through alcoholism and recovery.
Bella took her first drink when she was 11. Now she’s 15, and she and her friends have perfected the art of asking strangers outside liquor stores to buy them booze. It’s the best way to cope with her parents’ fighting, the grief and trauma of watching her beloved grandmother die, acting as a caregiver to her younger sister, and getting dumped by her first boyfriend, who said she was “too much.” A party a few weeks ago led to the drunken mess of a night known as Bella’s Extremely Unfortunate Public Downfall, after which her mom ruled: “no drinking, no parties.” But Bella’s parents are divorced, and when she’s staying with her permissive and inattentive dad, who’ll stop her? After Bella blacks out at a Thanksgiving party and her friends drop her on her mom’s stoop, she ends up hospitalized with alcohol poisoning and a broken face. Her mom sends her to an outdoorsy rehab center with a program focused on building self-awareness and self-reliance. Bella’s experiences with the program and her fellow residents are depicted with realistic nuance; nothing comes easily, and Glasgow carefully addresses relapses, anxiety disorder, self-harm, and death. After Bella’s treatment ends, she discovers that returning to her life may be the most significant challenge of all. Most characters are cued white.
A visceral, weighty read. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780525708087
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come.
A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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