A heartwarming tale of a superpowered high schooler with well-developed characters.
A teenage girl discovers the truth about her heritage in a YA SF story about the next stage in the evolution of humankind.
Sixteen-year-old Alexis Allerton is a teen with a passion for science; a crush on Everett Evans, a lab assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she’s an intern; a loving family; and close friends in fellow high schoolers Hannah and Josh. Alexis has always been told that she has hemophilia, and has lived all her life with restrictions on physical activities. Alexis undergoes treatment every two days; a trio of doctors—Sam, Ira, and Kan Roman—visit her at home to treat her with injections of a clotting factor. But then, one day, she has a small accident at the lab, cuts her hand and sees her own blood for the first time. The first thing she discovers is that it’s silver, and she later finds out that its chemical composition is impossible in nature. It turns out that her doctors have been lying to her family; she doesn’t have hemophilia, but does have superhuman abilities, revealed over the course of the story. She also finds out that she’s adopted, and to find out her true origins, she embarks on a life-changing journey across the world with Everett and her sister, Amanda. Mir delivers a fun, engaging novel that offers an original take on genetic mutation and human evolution with elements of comedy, adventure, and romance. It even includes lots of cool, fictional scientific explanations of things such as “liquid crystal blood.” Alexis’ coming-of-age takes her from the United States to Mexico and Kazakhstan alongside supportive, fleshed-out secondary characters who enrich this story of self-discovery, identity, agency, and ultimately, hope. The novel is reminiscent of Becky Chambers’ brand of optimistic, warm SF that will appeal to teens and adults alike.
A heartwarming tale of a superpowered high schooler with well-developed characters.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-953887-01-6
Page Count: 309
Publisher: Mir House
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A lightweight, action-packed space adventure.
A diplomatic mission to a newly discovered human colony immediately goes pear-shaped for a Skyward Flight escort detachment when drone ships attack.
Supporting characters from the Skyward series take center stage in this spinoff trilogy opener that combines heavy military action with relationship drama. Still pining for his purple-skinned flight mate, Alanik, flightleader Arturo Mendez suddenly also finds himself in charge of persuading the long-isolated residents of Blightfall (who have “three genders—male, female, and agendered”) that the war with the Superiority is over after the diplomats he was escorting are killed in a sneak attack. Although many plot points don’t hold up to scrutiny, the story features lots of aerial dogfights, narrow escapes, struggles with a rogue AI, and even some gladiatorial arena action—more than enough to fill in the gaps between exchanges of banter, awkward boy-girl fumbling, and repeated efforts to teach an alien how to tell “your mother” jokes. Along with being diverse in both species and human race, the large ensemble cast features many adorable aliens, led by the cytonic hyperslug sidekicks that expedite the instantaneous travel of Arturo and his squad and are in essence talking puppies. Readers ought to be in turn dazzled by the cuteness, adrenalized by the fighting, and charmed to see Arturo and Alanik kiss at last. Schematic images of select structures and spacecraft between narrative sections add visual detail.
A lightweight, action-packed space adventure. (Science fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9780593707050
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
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