Compulsively readable commercial-grade series fiction that provides solid thrills but is unsatisfying as a stand-alone.
Three teenagers in an isolated community have 100 days to figure out how to save the world.
There are two kinds of series for children and teens: those in which each book is a complete story with a beginning, middle and end and those that tell a segment of a tale before simply stopping in the middle. The Phoenix Files falls into the second camp, so Morphew’s series opener feels less like a novel and more like the setup for one. Set in Australia, this fast-paced page-turner with a tried-but-true premise begins when Luke and his high-powered, workaholic mother move to Phoenix, a picture-perfect corporate town that turns out to be seriously sinister underneath. It’s completely cut off from the rest of the world, and worse, as the protagonists later discover, they can’t get out. After Luke and Jordan receive mysterious messages via USB memory stick, they team up with computer-whiz classmate Peter and learn that all the world, excluding Phoenix, is scheduled to end in 100 days. As the clock ticks down—the chapter headings cleverly tell readers the number of days left—the so far largely monochromatic heroes must figure out what is going on, who is responsible and how to stop it.
Compulsively readable commercial-grade series fiction that provides solid thrills but is unsatisfying as a stand-alone. (Thriller. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61067-091-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
In the current game of one-upsmanship that is the teen paranormal romance market, how does one top vampires, faeries, angels (fallen and otherwise) and the like? Why, make your dark and brooding male lead the Lord of Death, of course. Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera and her mother have just moved to Isla Huesos (an alternative Key West) to start over after her near-death experience two years earlier (she drowned in the backyard swimming pool) and her parents' subsequent breakup. But Isla Huesos just happens to be a portal to the Underworld, making it very easy for tall, dark and handsome John to monitor the girl who ran away from him at 15. She wants to live, darn it, and bad things always happen when he shows up, so why is she so unhappy when he takes back the magical necklace he gave her when she was dead? Cabot's a pro; Pierce is a perfectly likable if almost preternaturally good protagonist; her relationships with her ex-con uncle, underachieving cousin and new buddy Kayla are genuinely endearing, and her interactions with John have the right mix of humor and sexual chemistry. A refreshingly offhandedly gay cemetery sexton rather testily helps Pierce along the way. Ultimately, though, the conventions of the form leach real suspense from the plot, making it feel more like a progress to the inevitable sequel (Underworld, coming in the indefinable soon) than any real reboot of the genre. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)
Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 970-0-545-28410-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Point/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Benson thinks he’s found the perfect school in Maxfield Academy, a private school in the wilds of New Mexico. Winning a...
Wells introduces Benson Fisher, a teen in search of a “real” life instead of a long series of unwanted foster homes—but instead of the utopia he’s searching for, he finds the direct opposite.
Benson thinks he’s found the perfect school in Maxfield Academy, a private school in the wilds of New Mexico. Winning a scholarship with unexpected ease, he looks forward to establishing real friendships and getting a good education at last. What he finds, however, is far from normal. Within minutes of the front doors closing—and locking—behind him, he finds himself in a fight for his life. He joins a gang, the Variants, just to survive. With no adults on campus, classes are taught by fellow students, punishments are passed on by computer and nothing seems to follow a logical path. Benson decides it’s time to make a run for it, until he finds out that no one makes it out of Maxfield…not alive, at any rate. Benson's account unfolds in a speedy, unadorned first person, doling information out to readers as he learns it himself.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202608-9
Page Count: 356
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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