Plenty of zombie action and queer romance but disappointingly little emotional bite.
In 2030, twins brave zombies to escape their father’s violence.
Seventeen-year-old Eira Helvig—a self-described “giantess” at 6 feet, 6 inches tall—and her brother, Soren, planned to leave their Central Washington homestead, knowing their father, a “paranoid, racist, homophobic, xenophobic” doomsday prepper, wouldn’t accept their queerness. When a strain of toxoplasmosis begins turning everyone into zombies, however, they’re stuck sheltering at home. But after their father starts killing people who enter their land, Eira and Soren escape on horseback, leaving their mother and younger sister behind. Though Eira can vanquish zombies (thanks to her Renaissance faire swordsmanship), she can’t outrun them. Luckily, she and Soren are coached by Racer, a Special Olympics triathlon champion with Down syndrome who created the titular club. As they encounter zombies and renegades across a corpse-littered landscape, ZARC gains new members, including nonbinary Cosmo, to whom Eira is immediately attracted. Can the survivors evade feeding zombies to reunite with their siblings at a safe haven? Despite the suspenseful premise, the underdeveloped secondary cast diminishes potentially powerful themes, such as the dissonance of loving a bigoted parent. While Eira and Cosmo’s physical attraction is vividly portrayed, their rushed emotional bond is less satisfying, Soren, who quickly falls for a boy called Navinder, wryly comments that “queers move fast at the end of the world.” Eira and Soren read white; secondary characters add ethnic diversity to the cast.
Plenty of zombie action and queer romance but disappointingly little emotional bite. (Paranormal suspense. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781524771041
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An affecting supernatural mystery with a pair of brave protagonists.
The disappearance of a child unveils what lies hiding in the woods at the edge of a small town.
There are all sorts of stories about Picnic, Illinois, but it’s not until her toddler cousin, Madison, goes missing from her crib one night that 15-year-old Luce starts to believe them—and especially when she notices a pair of glowing, wolflike eyes through the windows of her house. To everybody’s relief, Madison is returned to her crib, seemingly safe and sound, soon after she vanished, but Luce and the child’s mother notice discomfiting differences in the 2-year-old. And yet, no one else seems to give credence to their concerns. Luce, prompted by a teacher, starts to research Picnic’s history and the many disappearances—and sudden reappearances—of baby girls, going back decades. Meanwhile, deep in the woods, Fanya, who narrates alternating chapters, tends to the baby girl and prepares for the ritual to welcome her as part of her pack when the full moon comes. As Luce’s and Fanya’s stories converge, so do past and present in Lund’s atmospheric novel. The story borrows elements from South Slavic lore about women who turn into animals to tell an affecting tale about small-town secrets, wronged people, and the bravery of two girls bent on getting to the truth in order to save lives. All characters are assumed White.
An affecting supernatural mystery with a pair of brave protagonists. (Paranormal thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35109-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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