by Carole P. Roman ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 18, 2022
A measured but absorbing tale featuring intriguing characters with largely untapped abilities.
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In Roman’s YA series starter, a teenager joins a secret academy in which kids discover and hone their superpowers.
Grady Whill was so young when his parents died that he doesn’t remember them. Nowthe 14-year-old lives with his paternal uncle Leo, a radio DJ, and works part time to help keep the household afloat. At school, Grady and his bright, loyal best friend, Aarush Patel, who is autistic, have humiliating run-ins with football player Elwood Bledsoe, a relentless bully. Like many other kids their age, they dream of getting into Templeton Academy, an exclusive high school that only selects students whom they deem to have “rare talent.” Amazingly, Templeton accepts both Grady and Aarush; unfortunately, Elwood will also be joining them. The isolated academy, on an island off the Port of Miami, isn’t quite what Grady expected. There’s a lot of baffling stuff there, including a class called Subconscious Studies; there’s also a focus on students’ building their individual “powers”—which may include superpowers. The school’s creed, from which all the lessons of the school are drawn, is the enigmatic Codex—a highly secured ancient artifact that no one is allowed to see. Grady thinks about leaving Templeton, as he’s sure at least one teacher dislikes him, and Elwood continues to victimize him. But when he discovers an evil plan is afoot, he, Aarush, and their new school friends must find and unite their strengths, go up against some powerful people, and confront several of the island’s hidden dangers.
Overall, Roman keeps this opening installment rather vague. Leo, for example, cryptically disapproves of Grady’s attending Templeton but says nothing more than that Grady’s late grandfather wouldn’t be happy about it. Similarly, students learn the Codex’s quatrains and apparently apply them to their lives and academy lessons, but the ambiguous assignments include such things as a four-page paper on how “Looks can be deceiving.” As this is a novel of discovery, superpowers don’t dominate the proceedings, although a few characters’ special abilities do eventually crop up. The students also pick up valuable lessons along the way, such as that strength is more than simply physical. Grady, who narrates the story, is a sympathetic character who lost his beloved grandparents, who raised him from infancy, only a year before the events of the novel. Although he complains quite often at Templeton, he also has low self-esteem and wonders if he’s special enough to be at the academy. A superb set of supporting characters surrounds Grady—most notably Aarush, Aarush’s warmhearted cousin Pari, and Bailey Sloane, who delightfully takes no guff from anyone, including Elwood. Roman effectively depicts the island as a beautiful but mysterious and possibly dangerous place; one side of the island, for example, is a “craggy mountain with several jagged peaks,” but it’s coupled with a soft, “powdery” beach. Although readers will find that many questions linger at the end, the story promises to provide revelations in a subsequent volume.
A measured but absorbing tale featuring intriguing characters with largely untapped abilities.Pub Date: July 18, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 267
Publisher: Chelshire
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Carole P. Roman ; illustrated by Mateya Arkova
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by Carole P. Roman ; illustrated by Mateya Arkova
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by Scott Reintgen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2023
Truly fantastic.
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New York Times Bestseller
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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by Tomi Oyemakinde ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2023
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
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