Monet's Ghost (151 pp.; $17.00; Jun. 1, 1997; 0-689-80732-5): More fantasy from Yarbro (for adults, Writ in Blood, p. 686, etc.), this time about a teenager who transports herself inside Monet's Water Lilies. Geena's gift for slipping ``sideways'' into museum paintings becomes a burden when she enters Monet's masterpiece and cannot get out. There she encounters the priggish Crispin and his aunt, Lucrece, and learns that a ``ghost'' haunts their castle, changing their clothing, buildings, hair, and landscapes on a whim. Geena, in an attempt to find her way out of the painting and learn more about the ghost, meets Monet and asks him to paint her an exit. Yarbro tosses out many intriguing ideas and dwells on none for long; the playful proposition—that an art-lover can put herself into the paintings, literally as well as figuratively—may lure readers in, but will not hold them. (b&w illustrations) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-80732-5
Page Count: 151
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1997
Inept plotting and pacing sinks this idea-rich import, set in Newfoundland. By 2368, the Earth is only beginning to recover from the ecological depredations of previous centuries; meanwhile, survivors live in isolated colonies, under the thumb of a faceless “Commission” thanks to an orchestrated, wholesale slaughter of scientists, billed the Technocaust, a few years before. Blay, a teenaged orphan, learns all of this after being requisitioned from a Commission workhouse to provide companionship for Marrella, an arrogant townie whose weak immune system has made her a candidate for the prestigious, once-dangerous job of Bio-Indicator, or living environmental monitor. While slowly developing this promising set-up, McNaughton continually shoehorns in subplots and new characters, from a semi-religious resistance, to romantic interests for the two protagonists, from a sudden, offstage revolution partway through that brings down the Commission, to a protracted but similarly offstage search for Blay’s past. Readers hoping for a clear story arc, main characters who play major roles in events rather than just watching or hearing about them, or even just a bit of suspense, will be disappointed. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-008989-X
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Eos/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
Having given the tale of Atalanta a contemporary voice in Quiver (2002), Spinner proceeds to do the same for several other myths, by viewing them through the eyes of Hermes. Though a minor player in most of them, he’s a wonderfully engaging narrator: mischievous but not malicious, hardworking, ingenious, a sardonic observer of his peers (“Seducing mortals was one of the great guilty pleasures of the gods, second only to tipping cattle and ruining the weather.”). He’s equally at ease among mortals and shades, ever eager to please his father Zeus, but so averse to violence that he swears off killing after helping Perseus slay Medusa and shuns Olympus rather than watch the Trojan carnage. Spinner gives these ancient tales a lively spin without inventing major new events or characters for them, downplays the sex and violence by leaving nearly all of it offstage, and ends on a light note, as Hermes throws off his gloom by springing Odysseus from Calypso’s smothering embrace and settling down with the nymph himself to raise “many fine children.” It’s good to be a god. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 12, 2005
ISBN: 0-375-82638-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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