A lengthy first installment that sets up darker perils to come.
In this YA debut, siblings return to a fantasy realm to find fresh conflict brewing.
Since his parents’ divorce two years ago, 14-year-old John Jenson has lived with his father in Hunter’s Run, Maine. He dearly misses his 13-year-old sister, Violet, and can’t wait for her upcoming visit. While in school, however, he learns that she’s gone missing en route. The police find her backpack by a river in the woods near the bus station. Unlike his father and Officer Wilkins, though, John doesn’t suspect the worst. He believes that Violet can swim in river rapids because she did so two years ago in the Valley, a realm of magic and talking animals where he and she fought the foul Soldiers of Sorrow. In his memories, though, John isn’t completely sure that the Valley wasn’t just a hallucination that he and his sister shared. Then, as he investigates, a creepy old man points him to a rowboat on the river. When John hesitates, a tropical bird on the stranger’s shoulder says, “Just get in the darn boat and save us all a headache.” Meanwhile, Violet and her small white dog, Hodgey, wake up in the Valley’s Gateway Glade. They meet a deer named Ripple who informs Violet that a rebellion has broken out, and the Soldiers of Sorrow have returned. Selbrede merges idyllic fantasy trappings, such as the deer chief Boulder’s cave garden, and elements similar to those in comic books like Fables. He splits the chapters between John’s and Violet’s viewpoints, and within these chapters, he offers many glimpses into the siblings’ first visit to the Valley. The prose revels in teenage snarkiness and humor, as when John thinks, “I had been told about avoiding strangers, especially ones climbing trees in bathrobes.” As the narrative progresses, magical artifacts come into play, including the Ivory-Bound Book, which can reveal “the darkest secrets about oneself.” Tension comes from not knowing which human or animal characters might be possessed by the Soldiers of Sorrow, who embody traits such as jealousy, hate, and despair.
A lengthy first installment that sets up darker perils to come.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-329-60254-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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