A solid second installment in a dystopian drama that hinges on human emotion.
In the sequel to Legacy (2014), teen heroine Lex Knightley has moved on and started a new life with her boyfriend—until his father is charged with another violent act.
Things have changed since readers last saw Lex. The brutal Guardian Force has been disbanded, and dangerous emotion-altering drugs, such as Emovere (which suppresses fear) and Eupho (which boosts happiness to the point of giddiness), have been banned. People are repopulating the abandoned city of San Francisco and salvaging whatever they can of their normal lives. Lex is living with her father, taking classes at the newly reopened Stanford University, and falling deeper in love with Quin McAllister despite his emotional baggage. However, everything falls apart when Quin’s father, George, is accused of the brutal murder of his new wife, Shelly. He was previously jailed for murdering Quin’s mother; his violent behavior was possibly the result of a rare genetic marker that Quin may also carry. Quin is confident that his father is innocent of this new crime, but Lex isn’t so sure. As her relationship with Quin threatens to crumble under the weight of too many secrets, Lex begins to uncover evidence that George is being framed—and that Resistance leader–turned–drug czar Augustus Porter may be involved. Author Kane is also a forensic psychologist with experience evaluating violent criminals and treating trauma victims like those who populate her dark, disturbing dystopia. Because of this, her characters feel like well-rounded humans, right down to their all-too-real flaws and self-sabotaging emotional impulses. Her vision of an alternate San Francisco will appeal to fans of Philip K. Dick, while Lex and Quin’s love story will recall Tris and Four’s in Divergent, for better or for worse. A warning: one needs to have read Legacy in order have any inkling of what’s going on here, and even then, enough time has passed on the page that readers may occasionally be confused.
A solid second installment in a dystopian drama that hinges on human emotion.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-45-753883-4
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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