Another cookie-cutter tale of a “Chosen One” informs this awkward mishmash of science fiction and fantasy. Max is a sickly, craven complainer just shy of his 12th birthday when he encounters the bossy and boastful Rose beneath the Owl Tree, where he secretly cares for an injured silver owl, possibly the last of its magical kind. Together the pair ferret out the dreadful secrets of the post-apocalyptic High Echelon and are forced to flee for their lives. Yet an ancient prophecy promises the coming of the Owl Keeper, who alone can stop the Absolute Dark. Overwritten prose wavers between a world of ill-defined magic (Good) and preposterous science (Evil) with clumsy info-dumps contradicting pedestrian descriptions that tell instead of show. While the heroes’ implausible friendship is perhaps justified by their shared unpleasantness, their over-the-top enemies are at least entertaining in their cartoonish villainy. Any reader who manages to hang on until the heavily telegraphed climactic twist will be frustrated to find that the whole wearisome slog serves merely as setup to the big battle yet to come. Tedious. (Fantasy. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 13, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-73814-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A young man who unwittingly helps a punk steal an elderly couple’s television in the first story sets the somewhat uneasy tone for this collection. While glimpses of Soto’s characteristic humor and charm appear in later stories, many of these tales focus on less-than-comfortable events and experiences. There’s a girl whose tattooed and pierced babysitter dyes her younger brother’s hair orange and green, a fact sure to enrage their mom when she eventually finds out; a child who is achingly aware of the enmity of anti-war protesters and simultaneously proud of her immigrant parents’ efforts to improve their lives; and a sad young boy whose painfully polite parents have frozen him out of the family without apparently meaning to do so. Each situation is distinct, clearly drawn and immediate. Soto presents his characters with sometimes insurmountable challenges, but he limns their lives with such vivid descriptions and insights that readers will be left wondering how things work out—and wishing for the best. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-206181-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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