Fans of witchcraft literature will appreciate the book’s respectful approach; let’s just say—it’s spellbinding.
A woman’s tormented by a malevolent spirit that’s made its way from 17th-century Salem in search of revenge.
Diane, a bartender at a go-go club, is looking for her missing friend, Alicia. She uses her psychic abilities and witchcraft to conclude that a book of spells she’d bought—the Book of Shadows—has brought an evil spirit into the present day. Diane travels via hypnosis to 1692 Salem to stop the wicked Joshua and save her friend. But something’s not right when she returns, especially with her fiancé, Anthony, the detective she met while looking for Alicia. The author’s simple, breezy prose reads as young adult, but its mature themes seem appropriate for older readers, particularly since no teen protagonists are present. Regardless, the book’s topic will undoubtedly attract younger bibliophiles, and the novel wouldn’t be unsuitable, since there’s nary a sex scene and violence is typically described after the fact. The journey to old Salem is a turning point and splits the novel in two parts. The first zeroes in on solving the mystery of Alicia’s disappearance and ensuing attacks, as well as a murder, but it’s bogged down by Diane and Anthony’s zigzagging relationship. Anthony is protective but unsupportive; he laughs every time Diane mentions the supernatural. The book, however, flourishes in its 17th-century setting. The dialogue assumes a colonial dialect; for example, a new love interest of Diane’s says, “Thou hast come to join us.” Back in the present day, Anthony besieges Diane with questionable, sometimes aggressive behavior, a strange woman tries to contact her and images of her friends turn monstrous. The novel’s latter half ups the creepiness by saturating the pages in atmosphere, making great use of the cold, snowy outdoors, and portraying Diane in a perpetual dreamlike state.
Fans of witchcraft literature will appreciate the book’s respectful approach; let’s just say—it’s spellbinding.Pub Date: July 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477618127
Page Count: 374
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A Rand primer with pictures.
A graphic novel for devotees of Ayn Rand.
With its men who have become gods through rugged individualism, the fiction of Ayn Rand has consistently had something of a comic strip spirit to it. So the mating of Rand and graphic narrative would seem to be long overdue, with her 1938 novella better suited to a quick read than later, more popular work such as The Fountainhead (1943) and the epic Atlas Shrugged (1957). As Anthem shows, well before the Cold War (or even World War II), Rand was railing against the evils of any sort of collectivism and the stifling of individualism, warning that this represented a return to the Dark Ages. Here, her allegory hammers the point home. It takes place in the indeterminate future, a period after “the Great Rebirth” marked an end of “the Unmentionable Times.” Now people have numbers as names and speak of themselves as “we,” with no concept of “I.” The hero, drawn to stereotypical, flowing-maned effect by illustrator Staton, knows himself as Equality 7-2521 and knows that “it is evil to be superior.” A street sweeper, he stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel, where he discovers evidence of scientific advancement, from a time when “men knew secrets that we have lost.” He inevitably finds a nubile mate. He calls her “the Golden One.” She calls him “the Unconquered.” Their love, of course, is forbidden, and not just because she is 17. After his attempt to play Prometheus, bringing light to a society that prefers the dark, the two escape to the “uncharted forest,” where they are Adam and Eve. “I have my mind. I shall live my own truth,” he proclaims, having belatedly discovered the first-person singular. The straightforward script penned by Santino betrays no hint of tongue-in-cheek irony.
A Rand primer with pictures.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-451-23217-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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