A sweet story about thinking of other’s needs before your own.
In this gently fantastical YA novel, an angel visits a girl on Christmas Eve and bestows a unique gift.
Jamie Mayer is a well-meaning 8-year-old girl who desperately wants a laptop for Christmas. Instead, she’s disappointed to receive a wooden angel from her father. After Jamie says she’ll only believe in Christmas if she can witness the Nativity for herself, the angel comes to life in all his cigar-smoking glory. He introduces himself as Gabriel (Gabe to his friends) and offers to grant her wish. The story of a slightly selfish child learning a lesson on Christmas Eve is familiar, as is the character of a gruff but loving angel. Similarly, the numerous pop-culture references become a bit tiring, especially because Morgan seems intent on featuring as many dead celebrities as he can—biblical figures, former U.S. presidents and a certain legendary rock ’n’ roll singer—until a funny idea is stretched too thin to support the gentle humor. However, the story has some impressive touches, including Gabriel’s insistence that Jamie has to really want to go on the journey; her autonomy then lends the story more weight than it would have otherwise had. Also, Jamie’s interactions with shepherds and wise men are emotionally resonant, and the relationship between Jamie and her sister is believable. While terms of derision like “dorkmeister” are used too often, the underlying mix of love and irritation between the two girls feels true while adding a realistic foundation that helps ground the mild fantasy. The family structure as a whole is refreshing: Jamie’s mother is a night nurse whose work demands long hours away from home, while her father’s job (computing in a home office) places him in more of a domestic role. The father’s obsession with celebrating Christmas sets the stage for the yuletide journey, while the mother’s dedication to her work underscores the author’s overall theme of self-sacrifice, which connects the whole family to the story of Jamie’s growing maturity.
A sweet story about thinking of other’s needs before your own.Pub Date: May 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477205143
Page Count: 150
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Let’s hope for more from the next book set in this world.
Sasha Cadell has survived against all odds, holding onto her loved ones and strangers as they take their last breaths—and that’s why she’s known as Death’s Angel.
For six years Sasha has lived in Haven, the underground society built to withstand nuclear war. Since the war, since her family’s deaths, since discovering she doesn’t get sick like everyone else does, Sasha’s life has been full of death and overfull with grief. While working in the Ward, Haven’s limited hospital, she stays with patients as they die. When Tristian Hayes, a unit commander of the Force, ends up as her patient, hanging on for his life, she pleads for him to stay alive. He does—upending her bleak ritual as Death’s Angel. Hoping to forget everything she’s seen and to numb the pain, Sasha leaves the Ward in favor of a role with a pickax, expanding Haven’s tunnels. Tristian, fiercely determined and stunningly stubborn, recruits Sasha to the Force for a vital mission aboveground. The story picks up steam with Sasha’s intense training to become the medic for Tristian’s tightknit unit. Together, they bear the weight of their unit’s survival and all that’s left of humankind. While in training, Sasha struggles to discern friends and enemies, but nothing is as challenging as facing her own demons. In this prequel to her debut novel, Conform (2025), Sullivan tries to accomplish a lot with both the worldbuilding and plot machinations, resulting in a convoluted story and flattened characters. The plot doesn’t have a satisfying payoff, but the romantic tension between Sasha and Tristian will keep readers engaged.
Let’s hope for more from the next book set in this world.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9798217091027
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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