A hilarious, heartwarming, and absolutely unmissable sequel.
The continued multiverse adventures of Sal Vidón and Gabi Reál.
It’s been three weeks since Sal and Gabi saved the life of Gabi’s newborn brother, Iggy, and everything seems to be back to normal—or at least as normal as possible with a potentially broken universe. Then Sal’s calamity-physicist father and Gabi’s Dad: The Final Frontier finish work on their remembranation machine, which they hope will fix the holes in the universe created in the Pura Belpré–winning Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (2019)—but has become sentient artificial intelligence in the process. As if that were not enough, Sal’s unlikely new friend, Yasmany, seems to have gone missing, and a Gabi from another universe shows up to warn Sal that Papi’s research has destroyed her world and killed her own Sal and that they must stop his version of Papi from doing the same. This excellent sequel features nonstop multiverse hijinks, great comedy, and heartening moments that are skillfully interwoven with a subplot that features a delightfully surreal student production of Alice in Wonderland—er, “Alicia” in “el pais de las maravillas.” The supporting cast includes a plethora of nurturing adults as well as amusingly melodramatic AI’s. Most characters are Cuban American, and Hernandez continues to effortlessly incorporate intersectionalities, including Gabi’s loving polyamorous family and Sal’s Type 1 diabetes and his aromantic identity.
A hilarious, heartwarming, and absolutely unmissable sequel. (Science fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02283-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents/Disney
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
The plot thickens but is still far from crystallizing in this madcap sequel to The Mysterious Howling (2010). Transplanted to London while repairs are being made to manorial Ashton Place in the wake of the last episode’s disastrous climax, inexperienced but resourceful governess Penelope Lumley looks forward to shepherding her three young charges—still acquiring a veneer of civilization after having been supposedly raised in the forest by wolves—about the great city. Unsurprisingly, events quickly get out of hand. Except for the occasional self-indulgent aside (listing real but irrelevant 19th-century tourist guides, for instance), the narrative voice continues to develop, thanks to diversions into such niceties as the difference between “optimism” and “optoomuchism” and pterodomania (the study of ferns). When not digressing, the narrator keeps the plot aboil, stirring in vague warnings and (of course) references to a prophecy, characters with ambiguous identities, astonishing apparent coincidences and tasty elements such as a cast of theatrical (but also possibly real) pirates and a strange guidebook that furnishes Penelope with obviously-significant Clues to her own obscure past as well as that of the children’s. Great fun, and it wouldn’t be optoomuchstic to expect more to come. Includes frequent full-page line drawings, not seen. (Melodrama. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-179112-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
Heartbreaking at times and odd at others; an intriguing but only partly successful variation on the zombie theme with a look...
Wilson discovers that being undead is not the same as never having died, in this contemporary version of "The Monkey’s Paw" from a middle-schooler’s perspective.
Wilson thinks he knows how to put his broken family right, months after his beloved older brother died of an asthma attack in the family’s bathroom. His invented indoor, nighttime game, Zombie Tag, by luck allows him to find a zombie resurrection bell secreted in his best friend’s house. But the Graham who comes back from the dead, along with everyone else buried in the local cemetery, is vacant, dull and polite, only capable of emotionally experiencing anger and fear. Wilson’s first-person narrative hints matter-of-factly at a world understood to be extraordinary: Wilson’s father is engaged in time-based travel work in an unnamed business; friends’ fathers are said to have seen unicorns and yetis; a decades-old incident involving zombies is common knowledge; and most amusingly and true to form: Media attention on the local appearance of zombies is frenzied and then disappears entirely. Despite these intriguing elements, gaps and coincidences in the plot seem abundant, and the story isn’t as fleshed out as readers might hope.
Heartbreaking at times and odd at others; an intriguing but only partly successful variation on the zombie theme with a look at mortality and the process of grieving. (Paranormal fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-720-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
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