Struggling or reluctant readers may be perplexed, but the gripping, if violent, teen content will keep them engaged....
The Lazarus serum allows people with the right blood type to survive death, but in this minimalist dystopia, death may be preferable to the grim future that awaits the resurrected.
The serum has side effects. Pales, the resurrected, don’t breathe, their hearts stop beating, and they never age; skin, hair and eye pupils turn ghostly white. Jed’s community hates the Pales, confining them to the Graveyard, a decayed ghetto. His lawyer dad specializes in denying Pales post-mortem legal rights. Not long after Jed and his brutal friend Kyle beat up a Pale, Jed dies in a car accident, and his distraught girlfriend, Sadie, asks first responders to give him the serum. Now that Jed’s a Pale, his father can’t bear to see him; his friends, even Sadie, reject him. Good genre fiction offers readers a fresh, unique perspective on their world. This rare science-fiction hi-lo for teens (a category largely confined to urban realism) by a British fantasy author raises tough, intriguing questions about insiders and outcasts, gangs, loyalty and what makes life worth living. However, the exceptionally tight word count limits their exploration. This frustratingly vague world cries out for detail and context.
Struggling or reluctant readers may be perplexed, but the gripping, if violent, teen content will keep them engaged. Guaranteed to generate lively discussion. (Science fiction. 13 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-7811-2092-7
Page Count: 67
Publisher: Stoke Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
A uniquely arranged bouquet of terrors, as disturbing as it is beautiful.
A family’s secrets rise to the surface as a young man investigates a suspected murder.
Evander, who’s 17 and lonely, never leaves his room in the manor on Hazelthorn Estate. He’s told he’s too fragile and is locked away “for his safety” while an elderly butler feeds him brain-addling “medicine.” But one night changes Evander’s life—and the manor’s future—forever. Byron Lennox-Hall, Evander’s billionaire guardian and the family’s patriarch, dies unexpectedly. Relatives descend upon Hazelthorn like vultures as a shocking twist reveals that Byron left everything to Evander alone. Without Byron around to keep his only grandchild and presumed heir, Laurence “Laurie” Lennox-Hall, away from his ward, Laurie and Evander become the unlikeliest of allies. When they were boys, Laurie attempted to kill Evander—but, maddeningly, Evander can’t stop thinking about him. He also suspects that someone murdered Byron. Drews’ latest starts off as a straightforward whodunit and turns into something that’s far more sinister—and delicious. From descriptions of moth-eaten decay to vivid floral imagery, Drews luxuriates in atmospheric prose. Their literary green thumb nurtures intertwining themes of monstrosity and abuse alongside yearning, first love, queerness, and mystery. The slow-burn romance at the root of this blend of gothic and body horror is as tender as it is unforgettable. Evander is cued as autistic, and main characters present white.
A uniquely arranged bouquet of terrors, as disturbing as it is beautiful. (author’s note) (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250376299
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
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