Excellent as both an action piece and a crime drama.
From the writer and artist of Fallout (2015) comes a graphic novel inspired by true events at a Louisiana prison during Hurricane Katrina.
It’s August 2005, and Russ is an inmate of the Orleans Parish Prison. While he’s performing housekeeping duties, guards instruct him to help board up some of the prison’s windows because Hurricane Katrina is nearing landfall. Meanwhile, at the St. Bernard Parish Juvenile Detention Center, 16-year-old Sydquan discusses the possibility of release with his family and lawyer. To leave the detention center, they tell him that he must confess to a crime he didn’t commit. Instead, Syd remains silent and does time for the actions of another kid. This leaves him among a group of other juveniles who are bussed to safety at the Orleans Parish Prison. While serving the kids food, Russ is surprised to see Syd, his son, born shortly after his own jail term began; Syd, however, wants nothing to do with his absentee father. Then, when Katrina floods the prison and it loses power, the inmates must escape their cells or drown in sewage-tainted water. An uneasy truce forms between father and son as they navigate the chaos of the prison, only to face storm-ravaged New Orleans. Writer Walker and artist Oliveira do a fantastic job of immediately establishing the friction between inmates and keepers; for example, when Russ points out that he’s just mopped the floor, a guard asks, “You say something, midnight? Come speak into the mic, if something’s on your mind.” Generally, the dialogue is just tight enough to allow Oliveira’s black-and-white illustrations to do the narrative heavy lifting. A combination of fine linework and silhouettes gives characters a remarkable range of facial expressions and hand gestures, occasionally reminiscent of artist Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets, 2014, etc.). The story’s first half highlights the mismanagement of the prison, while the second shows the plight of neighborhoods destroyed by Katrina. Russ’ soul-searching helps readers find an uplifting ending, although plenty of cursing and gun violence mark this read for older teens and adults.
Excellent as both an action piece and a crime drama.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2015
ISBN: B00ZEEJ1JI
Page Count: -
Publisher: Mastermind Comics
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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