Exploitative treatment of disability does grave disservice to the compelling, carnival atmosphere of brutality.
A boy in an abusive orphanage and his “Rags-to-Riches Princess” flee from her controlling father.
Felix, like the rest of the Freaks, doesn’t get Bagged (zipped up in a sack) or Dragged (to the brig) for his regular punishments. He doesn’t get tased with the Wolf’s Hotshot when he breaks a rule. He’s too fragile, with brittle bone disease. But in Wolfgang Law’s Great Home for Good Girls and Boys, the four Freaks—as they refer to the disabled residents—are punished in their own special ways. It’s the only world Felix has ever known, until mere days before his scheduled Discharge on his 18th birthday. That’s when the beautiful Jewish girl from the fairy-tale castle across the street sneaks into the home and demands Felix help her. Annika and Felix are soon off on an exuberantly punctuated, sky-high-body-count journey around Nevada. The family secrets Annika hopes to unearth turn out to be uncomfortably Nazi in nature and more than a tad mad scientist. Meanwhile Felix is learning some unexpected truths about the Freaks’ disabilities, while the villains who hunt them become increasingly more physically grotesque or mentally unbalanced. The primary characters are White.
Exploitative treatment of disability does grave disservice to the compelling, carnival atmosphere of brutality. (Suspense. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64603-173-3
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Fitzroy Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Only marginally intriguing.
In a remote part of Utah, in a “temple of excellence,” the best of the best are recruited to nurture their talents.
Redemption Preparatory is a cross between the Vatican and a top-secret research facility: The school is rooted in Christian ideology (but very few students are Christian), Mass is compulsory, cameras capture everything, and “maintenance” workers carry Tasers. When talented poet Emma disappears, three students, distrusting of the school administration, launch their own investigation. Brilliant chemist Neesha believes Emma has run away to avoid taking the heat for the duo’s illegal drug enterprise. Her boyfriend, an athlete called Aiden, naturally wants to find her. Evan, a chess prodigy who relies on patterns and has difficulty processing social signals, believes he knows Emma better than anyone. While the school is an insidious character on its own and the big reveal is slightly psychologically disturbing, Evan’s positioning as a tragic hero with an uncertain fate—which is connected to his stalking of Emma (even before her disappearance)—is far more unsettling. The ’90s setting provides the backdrop for tongue-in-cheek technological references but doesn’t do anything for the plot. Student testimonials and voice-to-text transcripts punctuate the three-way third-person narration that alternates among Neesha, Evan, and Aiden. Emma, Aiden, and Evan are assumed to be white; Neesha is Indian. Students are from all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East.
Only marginally intriguing. (Mystery. 15-18)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-266203-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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