A magical steampunk exploration of difference, danger, and sacrifice.
A girl who’s endowed with magic navigates a postwar society that’s populated by nefarious beings.
Safi Defoy and her family—her father and older sister, Ada—work hard to maintain a business in their stone-walled city that’s nestled in a green valley. A recent war, which devastated people and businesses alike, left Papa with damaged lungs. Like her deceased mother, Safi is a magician; with training, her electrical powers could prove to be of great value. Those who possess magic are in danger, however: Liches—the souls of dead magicians who died in the war but weren’t properly laid to rest—are searching for power and hunting living magicians. Liches hide behind deep disguises, making it hard to know whom to trust. Ada takes Safi to see a show by famous traveling magicians Sergio and Caliban. During their performance, they notice Safi’s unbridled magical sparks. Afterward, they invite her to be their apprentice, offering Ada and Papa hope that she’ll be kept safe. This volume focuses more on building this world, which evokes 19th-century Central Europe, and developing the endearing characters than on telling a propulsive narrative. When the climactic action does arrive, it wraps up quickly. The clean, regular, richly colored panels, which include emotionally resonant wordless sequences, communicate the emotional weight of the fantastical elements. Most characters are light-skinned, and some are racially ambiguous and cued queer. Ada is aromantic.
A magical steampunk exploration of difference, danger, and sacrifice. (Graphic fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063266599
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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