A girl gets out of rehab but can’t stop herself from hanging with her wild friend.
Casey was a star student, but her friend Shana, who likes to walk on the wild side, deliberately led her into addiction to pain medication. Just after leaving rehab she promises her parents she’ll spend the night at a slumber party with trusted friends but immediately ditches them when Shana and pals show up. Shana first plays chicken at high speed as they drive to New York City, then gets Casey into a bar where her old boyfriend Sam, who dumped Casey because of her drug use, is playing in his band. Invited to a rave, they enter an abandoned part of the subway system. Roofied by Shana, Casey thinks she might be hallucinating when she sees the brutally murdered body of a friend. Police raid the party, driving Casey, Shana, Sam, and two others ever deeper into the mazelike subway tunnels—where they eventually learn what has been killing people. Vega morphs a teen-rebellion story into horror and does a nifty job with both, as Casey realizes that Shana has surreptitiously drugged her and begins to see the girl for the possible monster that she is. Exactly what attacks and devours the teens is kept ambiguous, adding a nice level of creepiness and psychological intrigue.
Both scary and gory, tailor-made for fans of the genre. (Horror. 12-18)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59514-724-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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Four reimagined fairy-tale heroines must confront their inner demons to break a curse.
Ella, Yuki, and Rory attend the prestigious Grimrose Académie for Elite Students in the Swiss Alps. They are currently grieving the death of one of their best friends, and while Ari’s death by drowning has been deemed either an accident or suicide, her closest friends have their doubts. When they find an old book of fairy tales hidden in Ari’s things, full of strange annotations in her handwriting, the girls start working—along with new student Nani—to investigate Ari’s suspicious death. As they put together the pieces and discover other deaths that happened at Grimrose, they start to wonder if there was magic involved in Ari’s death—magic that may also be at the core of their very lives, cursing them to unhappy endings. Grief, identity, and friendship intersect in this enthralling mystery with dark magical undertones that ingeniously plays with fairy-tale tropes to tell a feminist story about empowerment and grappling with how to break away from the confines of societal expectations of girls. Reminiscent of the works of Anna-Marie McLemore and Elana K. Arnold, this book ends with the promise of more to come. The main cast is queer and features diversity in disability and mental health. Rory and Ella default to White; Yuki’s name cues her as Japanese, and Nani is Black and Native Hawaiian.
Fans of empowering feminist fairy-tale retellings will love this. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72822-887-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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A must-read with a conclusion that will leave readers craving more.
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A monster spreads madness through the streets of Shanghai.
It is the autumn of 1926, and Shanghai is poised at the brink of transformation. Foreign powers have carved out portions of the city for themselves; what remains is divided between two feuding gangs, the Chinese Scarlet Gang and the Russian White Flowers. Eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai has returned home from New York City, wreathed in a reputation for ruthlessness and ready to step into her role as heir to the Scarlet Gang. Four years ago, a betrayal by the White Flowers heir, Roma Montagov, a young man of 19, led to the deaths of countless Scarlets, and Juliette is determined to avenge her gang. But when a lethal contagion strikes the city, targeting Scarlets and White Flowers alike, Juliette and Roma grudgingly agree to cooperate on an investigation in order to save their city. The slow-burning romance in this book takes a back seat to the gripping mystery grounded in immersive historical detail. Allusions to Romeo and Juliet are evident in names and specific scenes, but familiar themes of family, loyalty, and identity bear new significance in Gong’s inventive adaptation. Language is a tool wielded deftly by the multilingual characters, who switch easily among English, French, Shanghainese, Russian, and more, with Mandarin as the primary dialect for Chinese phrases. A strong supporting cast that includes a trans girl completes this striking debut.
A must-read with a conclusion that will leave readers craving more. (Historical fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5769-0
Page Count: 464
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
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