by Clifford Royal Johns ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 2021
A gritty thriller that puts the downside of superpowers into bracingly relatable terms.
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In Johns’ YA SF novel, a genetically modified youth vies with others to retain possession of a mystery package.
The author envisions a near-future Chicago in which ambitious parents employed new drugs and DNA manipulations to produce fast-thinking, high-achieving progeny but instead birthed a misfit generation of “Energy” kids, also known as “E’s” or “Fleas.” These young adults indeed have above-average reaction times, muscular coordination, and agility but also suffer from attention deficits, mood disorders, sleep deprivation, sterility, and sociopathic tendencies, and they take special nutritional supplements and medication. The loose community of E youth are outcasts, shunned by the rest of society, whom they refer to as “Slugs”; however, some manage to eke out livings as couriers for criminal types. In Chicago, Zane,who goes by the nickname “Zip,” is tasked by gangsters to deliver a seemingly ordinary package, but some hostile force reaches Bolt, the intended recipient, first and threatens Zip, who flees. Zip is left with a very hot item and endless questions about whom to trust as well as intrusive thoughts about math problems, names for cats, the economics of the lumber industry, and whatever else intrudes on his mind. Such excessive rumination could have made the material a chore to read, but Johns keeps things under firm control with a largely chase-based plotline that stays fairly straightforward until the introduction of an array of last-act betrayals and twists. The story also features a love interest who seems hopelessly treacherous; this suits the prose, which also feels like something out of a hard-boiled detective story: “Ratchet winced when I mentioned Jbird. The sound of her neck breaking would be with us for a while.” The notion that heartless helicopter parenting brought on these superkids is a potent one, and it will give the material some cred with YA readers. Meanwhile, the swearing and sexuality stay in the PG-13 range.
A gritty thriller that puts the downside of superpowers into bracingly relatable terms.Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-952283-12-3
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Vernacular Books
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Rebecca Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 26, 2023
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer.
Even a war driven by gods can’t sever communication between journalist lovers Iris and Roman in this steampunk-adjacent romantic adventure.
A prologue sets the scene: Dacre, a god strummed to sleep by magic in Divine Rivals (2023), will not slumber forever. His willingness to wage war to acquire more powerful magic leads him to lay waste to entire towns, and Inkridden Tribune journalist Iris Winnow and war correspondent Roman Kitt can no longer be assured the other is safe—or even still alive. In Iris’ world of cigarette smoke, copper pipes, and driving goggles, colleagues affectionately call each other by their last names, watch each other’s backs, and face danger on the front lines. Though Underling Correspondent Roman is traveling with Dacre’s army, he questions why he was healed of his grievous wounds, while at the same time, he gradually recovers memories of Iris and recalls that she was special to him. Their magically connected typewriters allow for the rediscovery of their love and for communicating potentially deadly information about the invasion of Hawk Shire. The story primarily unfolds from Iris’ and Roman’s viewpoints, and while the prose occasionally uses well-worn phrases, Anglophiles will particularly enjoy the worldbuilding, and returning readers will welcome appearances from Capt. Keegan Torres; her wife, Marisol; and Dacre’s archnemesis—and wife—the goddess Enva. Main characters present white.
The well-paced romantic tension is a highlight of this enjoyable duology closer. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250857453
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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by Lois Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1993
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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