Pack’s teen curators grow a bit wiser, and more lovable, in this latest volume.
In the latest volume of Pack’s (Becoming Johanna, 2016, etc.) YA fantasy series, curators Johanna and Jackson try to stave off a Terrorian invasion of the interdimensional library system.
Books within the Library of Illumination come to life—literally. Eighteen-year-old Johanna Charette and her boyfriend, 17-year-old Jackson Roth, are co-curators of the library, which they recently learned is part of an interdimensional system of libraries connected through portals. One of the connected realms, Terroria, is home to the power-hungry Nero 51, who wants to storm the other realms—Romantica, Juvenilia, and Fantasia (Earth) among them—to destroy all the books and steal their knowledge. Thankfully, the overseers, who manage the libraries, have sealed the portals and trapped Nero 51 between realms. Unfortunately, the Terrorian is in contact with a shape-shifting Mysterian named Odyon, who covets the Book of Myrrdin (Merlin). If this weren’t trouble enough, Johanna and Jackson are continually working together in the library. Their relationship has grown fraught, and though Jackson wants to plan for their future together in college, his penchant for sarcasm eventually leads to a cooling-off period with Johanna. Meanwhile, the various realms prepare for a Terrorian attack. In this third volume of the series, Pack shows readers the various realms, all different from one another. Those on Juvenilia “live to age fifteen and are then reincarnated as three-year-olds,” while those on Adventura are hu*bots, beings who combine biological and technological components. We also learn about the Library of Origination on Lumina, where an oracular gemstone helps the overseers, as Master Ryden Simmdry puts it, “align…thoughts and remove distractions” so that the “way to resolve a particular problem soon becomes clear.” As Pack creatively animates the various realms, the relationship between her two protagonists maintains the novel’s bittersweet tone. Johanna and Jackson are beautifully believable, especially as they drift apart. Everything combusts in a cliffhanger finale.
Pack’s teen curators grow a bit wiser, and more lovable, in this latest volume.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Artiqua Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Melodramatic, without redeeming character development.
Following the events of the series opener, 18-year-old Kamila Hamilton continues to try to reconcile her relationships with two brothers.
Kami’s family is struggling financially and her parents have decided to divorce. Kami blames her mother for the split, adding to the strain between them. Making matters worse, Kami is blamed for acts of vandalism and hateful Instagram comments directed against her classmates, isolating her from friends. She finds comfort in her romantic relationship with Taylor Di Bianco and friendship with Julian, a gay boy who continues to stick by her. But Kami still can’t shake her attraction to Taylor’s older brother, Thiago, who broke things off with her. He’s now working as a PE teacher at the nearby elementary school. Struggling to navigate their history and proximity, Kami and Thiago attempt to project an appearance of just being friends for Taylor’s sake while still secretly feeling anguish and lusting after each other. After the trio agrees to unearth a time capsule they buried eight years ago, the letters from their past selves trigger events that change everything. Continuing in the same vein as the earlier entry, this uncredited translation of a work by Argentinian author Ron, which was originally self-published in 2020, centers on explorations of indecision and guilt. The mystery surrounding who’s framing Kami brings some depth to the story, but the pedestrian writing and shallowly drawn characters undermine engagement. The central characters read white.
Melodramatic, without redeeming character development. (content warning) (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464234309
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
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