Velvet’s a child forced into early adulthood. Echoing the reality millions of young adults worldwide face daily, this...
Two years after a diet drink with genetically modified ingredients transformed countless Americans into mindlessly violent animals, the Contaminated are controlled by electronic collars, and the unclaimed are housed in kennels like that in which Velvet Ellis, 17, finds her mother.
Over-the-top premise notwithstanding, this suspenseful series opener is rooted firmly in the real world: ours. With her father dead and her mother a Connie, Velvet’s suburban middle-class existence is a distant memory. She and her 10-year-old sister, Opal, scrape by in subsidized housing, partly supported by Velvet’s menial nursing-home job. The girls’ shaky hold on normal life is finally upended when Velvet brings their mother home, facing anger and fear from neighbors and eviction from their landlord. Stubbornly compassionate Velvet hopes to disprove the conventional wisdom that contamination is permanent, but even if she’s wrong, she won’t abandon her mother. Too tired to keep up with schoolwork, abandoned by her longtime boyfriend, Velvet never stops seeing—and treating—the contaminated as human. If her steadfast opposition to the institutionalized cruelty of the private sector and the government puts her in danger, it also insures her own humanity against the calamity of treating others inhumanely.
Velvet’s a child forced into early adulthood. Echoing the reality millions of young adults worldwide face daily, this dystopia speaks to a wide range of readers, including reluctant ones. (Dystopian adventure. 12 & up)Pub Date: July 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60684-354-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Egmont USA
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An adventurous and romantic addition to the genre.
Lim blends “Beauty and the Beast” with Chinese folklore in her wondrous new tale set in the same world as her Six Crimson Cranes series.
After Baba, her father, is lost at sea, Truyan Saigas turns to art forgery to support her mother and two sisters. But Tru’s efforts to make ends meet aren’t enough, and gangsters threaten to take away her sisters if their mother’s gambling debts aren’t paid. When the authorities come to arrest Tru for her crimes, she escapes—and then encounters Elang, a cursed half-dragon, half-human prince. He offers a deal she can’t refuse: If she marries him and helps him dethrone his tyrannical grandfather, the Dragon King, he’ll ensure that she and her family are safe and debt-free and help her get answers to her father’s disappearance. After they’re officially bound in a loveless marriage, Tru enters Ai’long, a magical underwater realm where she’s guarded by turtles, befriends merfolk, and, with the aid of a hot-tempered water demon, masters her gift of Sight (an ability to see glimpses of the future) through painting. The inevitable romance is enhanced by a beautifully rendered subaqueous backdrop and beguiling folkloric elements. In this fantasy Chinese world, Tru’s blue hair is evidence of her Balardan heritage on her father’s side, a trait regarded as “a damning sight”; but being visibly different motivates her to be independent and self-loving.
An adventurous and romantic addition to the genre. (map) (Fantasy. 12-18)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593650615
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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