by David Baldacci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2019
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last.
The rebellion against an evil archmage and his bowler-topped minions wends its way to a climax.
Dispatching five baddies on the first two pages alone, wand-waving villain-exterminator Vega Jane gathers a motley army of fellow magicals, ghosts, and muggles—sorry, “Wugmorts”—for a final assault on Necro and his natty Maladons. As Necro repeatedly proves to be both smarter and more powerful than Vega Jane, things generally go badly for the rebels, who end up losing their hidden refuge, many of their best fighters, and even the final battle. Baldacci is plainly up on his ancient Greek theatrical conventions, however; just as all hope is lost, a divinity literally descends from the ceiling to referee a winner-take-all duel, and thanks to an earlier ritual that (she and readers learn) gives her a do-over if she’s killed (a second deus ex machina!), Vega Jane comes away with a win…not to mention an engagement ring to go with the magic one that makes her invisible and a new dog, just like the one that died heroically. Measuring up to the plot’s low bar, the narrative too reads like low-grade fanfic, being laden with references to past events, characters who only supposedly died, and such lines as “a spurt of blood shot out from my forehead,” “they started falling at a rapid number,” and “[h]is statement struck me on a number of levels.”
Awful on a number of levels—but tidily over at last. (glossary) (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-26393-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
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by Dori Jones Yang & illustrated by Stephen Yang ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 11, 2011
A 13th-century princess wants to be a warrior; the old tale's less forced than usual when set in the Mongol Empire with its legends of fighting women. Emmajin is Khubilai Khan's (fictional) oldest granddaughter, and she would rather be a soldier than a wife. Emmajin struggles to convince the Khan, but her desire is complicated by a growing attraction to the hairy visiting foreigner, Marco Polo. Emmajin's stubborn drive brings both her and Marco to combat and the novel's highlight: a lusciously described brutal engagement of cavalry, archers and elephants. Unlike much of the rest of Emmajin's tale, the battle and its profound emotional aftermath don't suffer from dry overdescription. Otherwise, Emmajin writes as if alien in her own home: She serves "Mongolian cheese," notices her cousins' "distinctive Mongolian male haircut" and rides with a "traditional Mongolian wooden saddle." With such a narrator, it's unsurprising that she finds exotic Christendom compelling, but it is a disappointment. Gorgeous cover art packages this blandly informative adventure, which is spiced with just enough blood and sexual tension to keep readers turning the pages. (Historical fiction. 12-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-385-73923-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
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More by Dori Jones Yang
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Howard Schultz with Dori Jones Yang
by E. Archer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2011
What are the chances that a granted wish will go off without a hitch—particularly when both the Fairy Godmother and the Narrator are ham-handed bumblers? Rightly regarding their hereditary right to one wish each as a curse, both the aristocratic Battersbys and their American branch, the Stevens family, have forbidden their offspring to make even idle wishes, ever. Enter black-sheep relative the Duchess Chessimyn of Cheshire, who pops up when geeky teen Ralph Stevens visits his three heretofore-unmet British cousins, and persuades the young folk to defy their parents’ ban. Disasters ensue. First, idealistic cousin Cecil’s efforts to liberate a land of downtrodden fairies kill his gloomy half-sister Beatrice. Then Ralph enters into a determined search through Purgatory’s rival cities of the “Recently-Living” and the more gruesomely decomposed “Soon-to-be-Dead” for Beatrice’s spirit. The confusion is compounded by the intrusive and increasingly ill-tempered Narrator’s efforts to maintain control of the unruly plot. By the end events have taken such a turn for the surreal that a hastily summoned Review Board of the Royal Narratological Society has to step in to right matters. The self-conscious metafictional folderol is likely to lose more readers than it gains, but Archer (pseudonym for YA suspense novelist Eliot Schrefer) creates engaging characters and telling throwaway lines and ultimately wrestles the family conflict at the core of this into a sort of resolution. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-545-16040-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
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