A lighthearted, endearing sci-fi romp in need of some grammatical polish.
Santos’ sci-fi adventure stars a college student who learns that his dream girl is on a secret mission.
Nicholas attends the University of California in Los Angeles. Classmates call him Moon Boy because he loves all things cosmic (and because he’s so pale). He learns that a class on cosmology will be offered, and he eagerly attends. Making his life even more perfect is the arrival of Zara, a redheaded freshman who recently moved from the East Coast. Zara tells him, “You should not focus on space to fulfill your dreams....Sometimes the things we wish for can be right before our eyes.” While bike riding, Nicholas finds an abandoned countryside shack. It starts pouring, and he runs inside. Lucky for Nicholas, Zara shows up on her own bike. The girl’s beauty and scent of jasmine overwhelm Nicholas, and the two kiss. After they start dating, Zara reveals that she comes from the planet Life in the Andromeda Galaxy. He thinks she’s joking until he wakes up on her spaceship, the Science II. In this optimistic sci-fi journey, Santos (O Outro Lado, 2017, etc.) raises issues of eco-awareness while also exploring the idea of alien abduction. Zara and the crew of the Science II are actually time-traveling Earth descendants from the 641st century on a mission to save King Zador II’s 7-year-old daughter, Princess Isadora, whose rare viral disease may be cured with the help of Nicholas’ indomitable immune system (containing the rare Lymphocyte N sequence). While Santos’ aliens are determined and manipulative, they gain heart while dealing with Nicholas, a soulful Everyman who craves only love and knowledge. The author’s warning—that humanity may shed many failings except its penchant for politics—is valuable indeed. Despite some grammar hiccups (“Nicholas thought that Monday would be a tedious one...with nothing different to happen”), the narrative’s spirited pace ferries readers toward a satisfying ending while setting up a sequel.
A lighthearted, endearing sci-fi romp in need of some grammatical polish.Pub Date: July 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5214-3653-0
Page Count: 281
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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