This YA narrative is full of quiet fury, and it’s remarkable watching its protagonist harness it.
In this debut YA techno-thriller, a computer-savvy teenager continues to develop a code language that his deceased father began.
High school senior Wyatt Fox has been seeing a graphic of a ghost while using the “Internet of Things Access” computer network. His friend Eli assumes that it’s an advertisement—just another data-tracking aspect of IOTA. However, Wyatt’s father recently died in a car accident, so the smart, lonely boy can’t help but acknowledge the weird coincidence. He had been close with his dad, who taught him how to write codes. They created a code language together, which involved famous quotes, such as Cicero’s “The aim of justice is to give everyone his due.” Now, Wyatt finds that he’s adept at manipulating a world that’s dependent on computer technology; there are self-driving cars, holographic sports in gym class, and companies obsessed with citizens’ biometric data. Wyatt learns that the ghost graphic (and its accompanying initials, WYW) was present at the site of his father’s accident. He also receives a text message that says, “You will know what to do,” along with coordinates for an old building in the city. He and Eli head for the location via train, but once in the city, Eli vanishes from the station, and Wyatt begins to learn that his father’s life wasn’t what it seemed. Dollahite has crafted a sharp, terrifying debut novel filled with the echoes of injustice that pervade 21st-century reality. His near-future world has seen cities destroyed by rising oceans as governments and corporations enforce the status quo, hunting down the last of the fossil fuels. As Wyatt’s father says, these groups have “been collecting our data for a long time now and...little good has come of it.” Eventually, Wyatt meets a beautiful hacker, Letti, and enters his father’s world in earnest. Meanwhile, he struggles with “how to make something just your very own.” The story creeps toward a blustery climax; hopefully, the sequel will validate Wyatt’s tough choices.
This YA narrative is full of quiet fury, and it’s remarkable watching its protagonist harness it.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1506158402
Page Count: 214
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly...
In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.
As Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren"; Mother works in the "Department of Justice"; but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories—painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder; the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. The process is deeply disturbing; for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing.
Wrought with admirable skill—the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel. (Fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 978-0-395-64566-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1993
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