Shallow execution mars an intriguing premise.
Lake Devereaux, 17, lost two beloved friends in a horrific accident, but she’s permitted to resurrect just one person, an agonizing choice complicated by a promise made years earlier.
Medical breakthroughs have made human resurrection possible. Regulations for population control provide that on their 18th birthday, each teen may elect to resurrect one dead person, at that time only. Resurrection is possible years after death, the resurrected person resuming life, free of flaws or disease, at the age they were when they died. Lake’s older brother, Matt, was paralyzed from the neck down in an accident four years ago. Embittered, he stopped trying to kill himself only when their parents secured Lake’s promise to resurrect him after a planned suicide. While her dead friends’ parents beg Lake to resurrect one of their children, Matt and her parents remind her she’s already committed. Then, with a boy she meets in a therapist’s waiting room, she uncovers secrets prompting hard questions about her friends, family, and herself (all evidently white). The novel’s best when exploring how resurrecting a loved one transforms individuals, families, and friends. The effect on the larger world remains unexplored. Odd, contradictory resurrection rules go unexplained. Could a resurrected person resurrect another person? Resurrection’s existed for decades yet seems to have effected only minor, local changes. These worldbuilding defects impede what should be provocative explorations of disability and medical ethics.
Shallow execution mars an intriguing premise. (Science fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-5024-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An entertaining and atmospheric, though sometimes clumsy, exploration of the true cost of beauty.
In this retelling of a classic, a drama student’s obsession with beauty leads her down a dark—and possibly deadly—path.
Eighteen-year-old Penny Paxton is beginning her first year at Dorian Drama Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she hopes to follow in her starlet mother’s footsteps—and earn the love that her mother has never seemed to offer. At Dorian, Penny is mentored by Royal Shakespeare Company legend Orlagh Camran, who makes her the compelling offer of a portrait by the Masked Painter, a mysterious artist with the ability to gift his subjects everlasting youth and beauty. But shortly after Penny’s portrait is complete, several of the Masked Painter’s subjects are found murdered. Fearing that she’s made a terrible mistake and may become the next victim, Penny, who’s gay, begins to investigate the murders with the help of an unlikely ally. As she attempts to uncover the truth surrounding the Masked Painter and the murders, she’s forced to reckon with her own toxic obsession with beauty. This chilling, atmospheric novel, inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, is entertaining and full of twists, though some of the reveals feel contrived and some questions are left unanswered. The plot unravels at a leisurely pace but eventually builds to an action-packed (if somewhat convoluted) conclusion. Most characters are cued white.
An entertaining and atmospheric, though sometimes clumsy, exploration of the true cost of beauty. (content note, author’s note, bonus scene) (Fantasy thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250346797
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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