Educates about settler colonialism while also entertaining with paranormal twists.
A teenager with supernatural gifts must solve her cousin’s murder before it’s too late.
Aside from the fact that she owns a ghost dog named Kirby, Ellie is like any other comic book–loving, ice cream–eating Lipan Apache teenager. Her non-Native friends include her childhood buddy Jay, who is White, and her cousin Trevor’s Latinx wife, Lenore. Yet Ellie does have traits that set her apart: She has inherited the talents of Six-Great-Grandmother, her powerful Lipan Apache forebear, and plans to skip college to work as a paranormal investigator. When Trevor dies in what appears to be a car accident, his ghost appears to her briefly, begging that she protect his wife and child. Ellie must call upon her strong lineage to rid her ancestral land of an ancient curse. Even as she discovers some of her own tribal relatives have been complicit in historic wrongdoing, she must save her family, animals, and community from destructive forces and restore balance to the world. A fast-paced whodunit set in a contemporary world like our own, this is a creative fusion of Indigenous cultural influences and supernatural fantasy. A brilliant, engaging debut written by a talented author, it seamlessly blends cyberstalking with Vampire Citizen Centers and Lipan Apache stories. This groundbreaking introduction to the fantasy genre remains relevant to Native histories even as it imaginatively looks to the future.
Educates about settler colonialism while also entertaining with paranormal twists. (Speculative fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64614-005-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Enjoyably atmospheric.
Sixteen-year-old Cara Tang has been able to see ghosts since she was a child, but her power is more a burden than a blessing.
Raised by Laolao, her late grandmother, who is both a ghost and a powerful ghost speaker, and her anxious, protective single mother, who has repressed her own ability to see ghosts, Chinese American Cara feels caught between the two women, unable to fully embrace or reject her ghost-speaking inheritance. When she stumbles across the snake-bitten corpse of Zach Coleson, a handsome, wealthy, and irritating white boy who’s been her rival since childhood, she turns to Laolao for help. Her grandmother informs Cara of the existence of the Signet Snake, a harbinger of destruction whose lethal bite can be undone within seven days using antivenom from the snake’s counterpart residing in the liminal world. Zach’s ghost agrees to Cara’s bargain—$12,000 and a college recommendation letter from his influential dad in return for his resurrection—and the two set off on a dangerous journey across magical landscapes. Cara’s also contending with a growing awareness that her feelings for Zach—an unexpectedly resourceful and protective adventuring partner—might burn hotter than mere annoyance. Aside from a sprinkling of Chinese lore and original mythology, this ornately written debut focuses on themes of legacy and self-acceptance through Cara’s internal struggle with being a ghost speaker. The romantic tension running throughout is palpable but needs a little more substance to make the leads’ attraction feel completely convincing.
Enjoyably atmospheric. (Paranormal. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780063252769
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
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