Blood Mates Natalie (all human) and Ash (half human, half vampire) continue the drive to unseat the evil dictator Purian Rose and win justice for all races in the United Sentry States.
At the end of Phoenix (2013), Natalie was plucked from danger and restored to her mother and the father she thought dead, both key members of the Sentry rebellion against Rose. Meanwhile, Ash—aka the Phoenix, symbol of the grass-roots campaign Humans for Unity—heads home to Black City to regroup. They both have their eyes on the Tenth, the concentration camps where Rose has imprisoned the vampire Darklings. Each with allies both human and in-, they reunite there. Their alternating, present-tense narrations are joined in this book by a third, that of Edmund, whose story occurs 30 years before and provides both some flimsy back story and lots more angst. What with double crosses, secret missions, unlikely victories in skirmishes, obvious revelations and the occasional death, there’s plenty of action, but the blow-by-blow narration holds it in stasis. The characters are like bad actors in a high school play, emoting on cue and then moving to the next mark. The scientific improbabilities that have plagued the series from the beginning mount here, with the (protracted) climactic moment fueled by a laughably impossible medical procedure. Only for those readers who are dying to read the end of Natalie and Ash’s story. (Paranormal romance. 14-18)
Pub Date: June 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-15945-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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A slightly abridged graphic version of the classic that will drive off all but the artist’s most inveterate fans.
Admirers of the original should be warned away by veteran horror artist Bernie Wrightson’s introductory comments about Grimly’s “wonderfully sly stylization” and the “twinkle” in his artistic eye. Most general readers will founder on the ensuing floods of tiny faux handwritten script that fill the opening 10 pages of stage-setting correspondence (other lengthy letters throughout are presented in similarly hard-to-read typefaces). The few who reach Victor Frankenstein’s narrative will find it—lightly pruned and, in places, translated into sequences of largely wordless panels—in blocks of varied length interspersed amid sheaves of cramped illustrations with, overall, a sickly, greenish-yellow cast. The latter feature spidery, often skeletal figures that barrel over rough landscapes in rococo, steampunk-style vehicles when not assuming melodramatic poses. Though the rarely seen monster is a properly hard-to-resolve jumble of massive rage and lank hair, Dr. Frankenstein looks like a decayed Lyle Lovett with high cheekbones and an errant, outsized quiff. His doomed bride, Elizabeth, sports a white lock à la Elsa Lanchester, and decorative grotesqueries range from arrangements of bones and skull-faced flowers to bunnies and clownish caricatures.
Grimly plainly worked hard, but, as the title indicates, the result serves his own artistic vision more than Mary Shelley’s. (Graphic classic. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-186297-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
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Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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