A bittersweet novel about growing up and chasing dreams.
Two friends try to leave their rough childhoods behind in C.O.B’s (Words and Graphics—A Collection of Works, 2012, etc.) wistful bildungsroman.
Best friends Gary and Lincoln live for the hours after their parents have gone to bed, when they can sneak onto the roof and watch magical shapes and colors shoot across the sky. During the daytime, though, their lives are harder: From Lincoln’s drug dealer father to marital problems for Gary’s parents, adolescence is hard on the two boys, and they find themselves longing to escape. When a bully at school and family problems at home start to push the boys too far, they hatch a plan to build a rocket ship and leave once and for all. The boys are excited about their plan, and it seems as though not even Lincoln’s waning innocence will be able to destroytheir magic wish—until word of their plan gets out at school, and they suddenly find themselves besieged with requests to join in their adventure. Softhearted Gary is sympathetic to the requests, but Lincoln’s upbringing has hardened him, and he’s too afraid of failure to risk letting other kids join in. When a peculiar old shopkeeper warns them that their friendship is the only thing that will allow the rocket ship to work, Lincoln knows their time is running out. Suddenly, what once seemed like a surefire plan has become daunting, and Lincoln is in danger of losing the person who matters most. Tender and perceptive, this heartfelt coming-of-age novel is rife with all the pain and confusion of early adolescence. With their selfish innocence and shortsighted desire to make themselves feel good, Gary, Lincoln and their classmates could have stepped out of the hallway of any junior high school, yet the magical shapes and colors in the sky and the ability to make wishesgive this touching story just enough magic to lift it away from the humdrum world of middle school reality. However, while the magic is pleasantly subtle, readers are left in the dark about its exact mechanisms and limits, which can leave the plot twists feeling more fuzzy and confusing than satisfyingly enchanted.
A bittersweet novel about growing up and chasing dreams.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Grey Line Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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