A predictable teenage murder mystery—with exceptional teenage characters.
A teenage girl’s death leaves her best friend with bittersweet memories and dangerous questions.
2014 is a terrible year for Marly, who has just discovered the body of her best friend, Rae, in a ramshackle cabin in the woods (“If not for her grayish-blue complexion and Goth-purple lips, Rae could’ve been sleeping”). Three years earlier, when they were in their early teens, they had found that cabin and dubbed it their “sanctuary,” a place to escape their troubled home lives. They swore a blood oath to be best friends and keep the cabin for them alone, but boys and adolescent insecurities slowly drove them apart. Constantine alternates between the two timelines throughout the novel. In the past, Marly and Rae’s deep friendship falters thanks to Rae’s partying, some snarky friends, and, most importantly, a hot jock named Duffy. Marly can hardly believe Duffy’s interest in her, even as a real relationship develops, because she feels a competition brewing with her lively, beautiful bestie. Meanwhile, in the present storyline, the teenage drama becomes deadly serious as it becomes clear that Rae’s death was not a suicide. With each new revelation about Rae’s secrets, Marly realizes that everyone’s a suspect. The mystery at the core of Constantine’s YA novel will hold few surprises for fans of the genre, who will probably guess the guilty party early on. What does surprise, however, is the fascinating codependency between the two girls. Rae and Marly wound each other deeply and repeatedly with barbed comebacks and secrets before reconciling, always dancing around their mutual infatuation. The novel treads through the usual suspects of shocking teenage crises: pregnancy, self-harm, love triangles, and treacherous adults. But Rae and Marly’s tender, twisted love for each other gives the story real drama.
A predictable teenage murder mystery—with exceptional teenage characters.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-66-414076-7
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Truly fantastic.
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
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