Given the generally unloving relationship Elvira has with her mother, the feel-good ending seems too pat, but the...
A mid-century family road trip becomes a journey into faith.
Elvira’s sister Jessie is born at home in a difficult delivery, several months after their alcoholic but loving father apparently perished in the sinking of his World War II troop ship. As Jessie grows, she becomes decidedly strange, not speaking until after her fourth birthday, when the first word she utters is “Damnation!” Jessie seems to have an unusual connection to psychic forces, able to read some people’s minds and sometimes see into the future—but not apparently at will. Their cantankerous, unhappy mother packs up the family, and they hit the road with an itinerant preacher, bound for California. The reason for their trip is not obvious at first, but Elvira gradually comes to believe that her father may not be dead and that Jessie’s vision of him is guiding their mother. Under the preacher’s kindly ministrations, Elvira slowly develops belief in a benevolent God, and although she remains conflicted about what His role ought to be in her life, she accepts that Jessie’s visions are providing much-needed guidance. While Christian beliefs flavor this effort, they never overpower the narrative but are instead organic to it.
Given the generally unloving relationship Elvira has with her mother, the feel-good ending seems too pat, but the supernatural element will extend appeal to a broader audience. (Christian/supernatural fiction. 10 & up)Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-310-72314-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Zondervan
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
A dizzying, intimate romance.
Rowan teams up with her academic nemesis to win a citywide scavenger hunt.
Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been rivals in a never-ending game of one-upmanship since freshman year. Now, on the last day of senior year, Rowan hopes to best Neil once and for all as valedictorian, then win Howl, a scavenger hunt with a $5,000 cash prize. She also hopes to sneak away to her favorite romance author’s book signing; no one’s ever respected her passion for the genre, not even her children’s book author/illustrator parents. But Rowan’s named salutatorian, and vengeful classmates plot to end her and Neil’s reign. At first their partnership is purely strategic, but as the pair traverse the city, they begin to open up. Rowan learns that Neil is Jewish too and can relate to both significant cultural touchstones and experiences of casual anti-Semitism. As much as Rowan tries to deny it, real feelings begin to bloom. Set against a lovingly evoked Seattle backdrop, Rowan and Neil’s relationship develops in an absorbing slow burn, with clever banter and the delicious tension of first love. Issues of class, anti-Semitism, and sex are discussed frankly. Readers will emerge just as obsessed with this love story as Rowan is with her beloved romance novels. Rowan’s mother is Russian Jewish and Mexican, and her father is American Jewish and presumably White; most other characters are White.
A dizzying, intimate romance. (author’s note) (Romance. 13-18)Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4024-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development.
A portal fantasy survivor story from an established devotional writer.
Fourteen-year-old Eva’s maternal grandmother lives on a grand estate in England; Eva and her academic parents live in New Haven, Connecticut. When she and Mum finally visit Carrick Hall, Eva is alternately resentful at what she’s missed and overjoyed to connect with sometimes aloof Grandmother. Alongside questions of Eva’s family history, the summer is permeated by a greater mystery surrounding the work of fictional children’s fantasy writer A.H.W. Clifton, who wrote a Narnialike series that Eva adores. As it happens, Grandmother was one of several children who entered and ruled Ternival, the world of Clifton’s books; the others perished in 1952, and Grandmother hasn’t recovered. The Narnia influences are strong—Eva’s grandmother is the Susan figure who’s repudiated both magic and God—and the ensuing trauma has created rifts that echo through her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. An early narrative implication that Eva will visit Ternival to set things right barely materializes in this series opener; meanwhile, the religious parable overwhelms the magic elements as the story winds on. The serviceable plot is weakened by shallow characterization. Little backstory appears other than that which immediately concerns the plot, and Eva tends to respond emotionally as the story requires—resentful when her seething silence is required, immediately trusting toward characters readers need to trust. Major characters are cued white.
Evocations of Narnia are not enough to salvage this fantasy, which struggles with thin character development. (author’s note, map, author Q&A) (Religious fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593194454
Page Count: 384
Publisher: WaterBrook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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