A demon-hunting fix for readers who can forgive page-padding.
Following Dark Star (2012), a new demon in town named Susannah is looking for the girl with the power to open pathways to the Beneath, and the threat strains Audrey’s relationship.
Audrey’s boyfriend, Leon, is her Guardian, meaning he is mystically bound to protect her and has been granted magic abilities to do so—chiefly, he can sense when she is in danger and teleport to save her. That’s why it’s concerning when Audrey has an encounter with a group of Harrowers led by Susannah and Leon doesn’t show. Luckily for Audrey, a newly arrived Guardian hunting Susannah saves her. While the Guardians do their best to counter the new demonic threat, Audrey does not disclose the episode and the bond issues with Leon it implies. When Leon finds out, he too decides to keep the magical malfunction secret, concluding that Audrey is the source of the bond disruption. Audrey’s desire to keep him safe keeps them ignorant of the dangers she’s facing; luckily, her own powers are growing. Against this relationship drama, Audrey’s two best friends pursue interesting subplots, Susannah launches a series of testing attacks against the Guardians, and Audrey’s mother, more like Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunters than the superhero Audrey’s narration promises, fights no crime. The plot’s uneven, but dialogue and characters are strong. In the last 50 pages or so, the story really comes to life for those readers patient enough to have made it through the first 290.
A demon-hunting fix for readers who can forgive page-padding. (Urban fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4666-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember.
Kai’s life is upended when his coastal village is devastated in Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in this verse novel from an author who experienced them firsthand.
With his single mother, her parents, and his friend Ryu among the thousands missing or dead, biracial Kai, 17, is dazed and disoriented. His friend Shin’s supportive, but his intact family reminds Kai, whose American dad has been out of touch for years, of his loss. Kai’s isolation is amplified by his uncertain cultural status. Playing soccer and his growing friendship with shy Keiko barely lessen his despair. Then he’s invited to join a group of Japanese teens traveling to New York to meet others who as teenagers lost parents in the 9/11 attacks a decade earlier. Though at first reluctant, Kai agrees to go and, in the process, begins to imagine a future. Like graphic novels, today’s spare novels in verse (the subgenre concerning disasters especially) are significantly shaped by what’s left out. Lacking art’s visceral power to grab attention, verse novels may—as here—feel sparsely plotted with underdeveloped characters portrayed from a distance in elegiac monotone. Kai’s a generic figure, a coat hanger for the disaster’s main event, his victories mostly unearned; in striking contrast, his rural Japanese community and how they endure catastrophe and overwhelming losses—what they do and don’t do for one another, comforts they miss, kindnesses they value—spring to life.
It’s the haunting details of those around Kai that readers will remember. (author preface, afterword) (Verse fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-53474-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod.
Can a 17-year-old with her first girlfriend prevent real-life folks from discovering her online fandoms?
Cass is proudly queer, happily fat, and extremely secretive about being a fan who role-plays on Discord. Back in middle school, she had what she calls a gaming addiction, playing “The Sims” so much her parents had to take the game away. Now, turning to her role-play friends to cope with her fighting parents, she worries that people will judge her for her fannishness and online life. To be fair, her grades are suffering. And sure, maybe she’s missed a college application deadline. Also, her mom has suddenly left Minneapolis and moved to Maine to be with a man she met online. But on the other hand, Cass is finally dating her amazingly cute longtime crush, Taylor. Pansexual Taylor is a gamer, a little bit punk, White like Cass, and so, so great—but she still can’t help comparing her to Rowan, Cass’ online best friend and role-playing ship partner. But Rowan doesn’t want to be a dirty little secret and doesn’t see why Cass can’t be honest about this part of her life. The inevitable train wreck of her lies looms on the horizon for months in an overlong morality play building to the climax that includes tidy resolutions to all the character arcs that are quite heartwarming but, in the case of Cass’ estranged mother, narratively unearned.
Despite the well-meaning warmth, a wearying plod. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-324332-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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