Four girls and their running coach develop supernatural powers in this debut novel.
Middle-school girls Cassie, Bridget, and Jillian and junior high student Nicole are known as the Blugees, named after the blue markers on one of their running trails. Their coach—Bridget and Nicole’s father; Jillian’s uncle—is just called Dad. When out running one day, Dad and the Blugees come across a mysterious blue tree that engulfs them in blue pollen. From this moment on, all the girls manifest superpowers: Jillian can manipulate time; Cassie has extraordinary speed; Bridget’s thinking skills are greatly enhanced; and Nicole can fly. At first, the girls simply enjoy their new abilities. But then their future selves send them a warning: A superhuman named Kirk has come back in time to kill the Blugees and change history. As the girls grow up, they must increase their powers further and defeat Kirk. But even if they are successful, new challenges will await. A radioactive meteor is heading for Earth and if unchecked will wipe out all life. Can Dad and the Blugees save the world? In this SF series opener, Morse writes in the first person, narrating from Dad’s perspective in an unsettling mix of past and present tense (often within paragraphs). This stylistic quirk aside, the prose and dialogue are straightforward and the story simply told. The plot itself, though a wonderfully tangled potpourri of time paradoxes and superpower problems and solutions, is navigated calmly. One of the strengths of the story is that it unfolds across many years, allowing readers to follow the Blugees’ growth—collectively and as individuals—from girls to young women to parents. Dad remains an affectionate elder statesman, maturing into a grandfather, and the Blugees’ children are all the more relatable for being the offspring of established characters. While the tale’s pacing seems leisurely at times, several of the plot crises return in unexpected ways, adding to the sense of peril. Readers of all ages should enjoy the ride.
An imaginative, free-wheeling SF adventure with a strong focus on family.Pub Date: March 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-69362-861-0
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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While a few weeks ago it seemed as if Praeger would have a two month lead over Dutton in their presentation of this Soviet best seller, both the "authorized" edition (Dutton's) and the "unauthorized" (Praeger's) will appear almost simultaneously. There has been considerable advance attention on what appears to be as much of a publishing cause celebre here as the original appearance of the book in Russia. Without entering into the scrimmage, or dismissing it as a plague on both your houses, we will limit ourselves to a few facts. Royalties from the "unauthorized" edition will go to the International Rescue Committee; Dutton with their contracted edition is adhering to copyright conventions. The Praeger edition has two translators and one of them is the translator of Doctor Zhivago Dutton's translator, Ralph Parker, has been stigmatized by Praeger as "an apologist for the Soviet regime". To the untutored eye, the Dutton translation seems a little more literary, the Praeger perhaps closer to the rather primitive style of the original. The book itself is an account of one day in the three thousand six hundred and fifty three days of the sentence to be served by a carpenter, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. (Solzhenitsyn was a political prisoner.) From the unrelenting cold without, to the conditions within, from the bathhouse to the latrine to the cells where survival for more than two weeks is impossible, this records the hopeless facts of existence as faced by thousands who went on "living like this, with your eyes on the ground". The Dutton edition has an excellent introduction providing an orientation on the political background to its appearance in Russia by Marvin Kalb. All involved in its publication (translators, introducers, etc.) claim for it great "artistic" values which we cannot share, although there is no question of its importance as a political and human document and as significant and tangible evidence of the de-Stalinization program.
Pub Date: June 15, 1963
ISBN: 0451228146
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Praeger
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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A middle-aged woman returns to her childhood home to care for her ailing father, confronting many painful secrets from her past.
When Mallory Aldiss gets a call from a long-ago boyfriend telling her that her elderly father has been gallivanting around town with a gun in his hand, Mallory decides it’s time to return to the small Rhode Island town that she’s been avoiding for more than a decade. Mallory’s precocious 13-year-old daughter, Joy, is thrilled that she'll get to meet her grandfather at long last, and an aunt, too, and she'll finally see the place where her mother grew up. When they arrive in Bay Bluff, it’s barely a few hours before Mallory bumps into her old flame, Jack, the only man she’s ever really loved. Gone is the rebellious young person she remembers, and in his place stands a compassionate, accomplished adult. As they try to reconnect, Mallory realizes that the same obstacle that pushed them apart decades earlier is still standing in their way: Jack blames Mallory’s father for his mother’s death. No one knows exactly how Jack’s mother died, but Jack thinks a love affair between her and Mallory’s father had something to do with it. As Jack and Mallory chase down answers, Mallory also tries to repair her rocky relationships with her two sisters and determine why her father has always been so hard on her. Told entirely from Mallory’s perspective, the novel has a haunting, nostalgic quality. Despite the complex and overlapping layers to the history of Bay Bluff and its inhabitants, the book at times trudges too slowly through Mallory’s meanderings down Memory Lane. Even so, Delinsky sometimes manages to pick up the pace, and in those moments the beauty and nuance of this complicated family tale shine through. Readers who don’t mind skimming past details that do little to advance the plot may find that the juicier nuggets and realistically rendered human connections are worth the effort.
A touching family drama that effectively explores the negative impact of stress on fragile relationships.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-11951-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION
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