A shrewd, diverting story that adeptly blends real-life and supernatural elements.
In Clay’s YA debut, a graffiti tagger discovers a workshop where artists bring one-dimensional images into the physical world.
Thirteen-year-old orphan Blanco hasn’t yet found a permanent home. His latest placement, however, shows promise, as his new, wealthy foster father shares a love of art with Blanco. The teen wakes up one night to burglars yanking Van Gogh’s Starry Nightright off the wall. As that’s Blanco’s favorite piece, and he’s had previous run-ins with the law (courtesy of his graffiti tags), some suspect that he’s the thief. He sets out to recover the painting and gets caught up in a group of young fellow artists and their bizarre workshop—they have the astonishing ability to bring art to life, from an apple one can grasp to a doorway one can pass through. Blanco may possess this skill as well, and he struggles to learn to use it. But why are there so few details available about the Architect who runs the workshop? Clay introduces a fascinating world and cast of characters in this pithy opening installment to his series. Blanco is a relatable young hero who quietly pines for a family, and the workshop artists are a motley bunch, including the delightfully hyperactive Tinker and the perpetually obnoxious Smirk, who deliberately mispronounces Blanco’s name (“Watch it, Blank-o”). Supernatural qualities aside, the art is remarkable in its own right as the narrative showcases descriptions of a variety of techniques, including stenciling, sculpting, and etching, which uses acid to burn an image onto a metal plate. As much of the story is about discovery, there’s a lot left unexplored, and this opening entry ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.
A shrewd, diverting story that adeptly blends real-life and supernatural elements.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2023
ISBN: 979-8988807278
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Swift Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
This fresh reworking of a Greek myth will resonate.
An otherworldly Latinx retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the South Bronx.
Pheus visits his father in the Bronx every summer. The Afro-Dominican teen is known for his mesmerizing bachata music, love of history, and smooth way with the ladies. Eury, a young Puerto Rican woman and Hurricane Maria survivor, is staying with her cousin for the summer because of a recent, unspecified traumatic event. Her family doesn’t know that she’s been plagued since childhood by the demonlike Ato. Pheus and Eury bond over music and quickly fall in love. Attacked at a dance club by Sileno, its salacious and satyrlike owner, Eury falls into a coma and is taken to el Inframundo by Ato. Pheus, despite his atheism, follows the advice of his father and a local bruja to journey to find his love in the Underworld. Rivera skillfully captures the sounds and feels of the Bronx—its unique, diverse culture and the creeping gentrification of its neighborhoods. Through an amalgamation of Greek, Roman, and Taíno mythology and religious beliefs, gaslighting, the colonization of Puerto Rico, Afro-Latinidad identity, and female empowerment are woven into the narrative. While the pacing lags in the middle, secondary characters aren’t fully developed, and the couple’s relationship borders on instalove, the rush of a summertime romance feels realistic. Rivera’s complex world is well realized, and the dialogue rings true. All protagonists are Latinx.
This fresh reworking of a Greek myth will resonate. (Fabulism. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0373-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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