After six months on a Farm where teens are raised to feed the vampire-mutant Ticks, Lily has a plan to escape with her autistic twin sister, Mel.
Unbeknownst to Lily, her plan is doomed. Luckily, Carter, a boy she knew in the Before, shows up in the nick of time to tell her what to do instead. The story is narrated in three voices. Lily's voice gets the lion's share. Mel's voice—less the voice of a genuine autistic person and more florid riddle-talk—narrates a few short snippets. In Carter's chapters, which are, disconcertingly, written in third person, readers hear that Lily has the special thought-controlling powers of an abductura, though the nature of those powers and the dubious sources of Carter's information take a long time to be revealed. At every turn, Lily is punished for being self-reliant: Not only do readers learn her escape plot would have failed, but the actions she takes in self-defense, such as breaking one of Carter's tranquilizer darts after he has shot her with another, consistently backfire. A few tense action scenes and some by-the-book romantic tension aren't enough to outweigh the book's distasteful message: Do as you're told, girls, and leave the planning and fighting to the boys.
Nothing new here. (Science fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-425-25780-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
Categories: TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL
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BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Categories: TEEN FICTION | TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN ROMANCE
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Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2014
Categories: TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL
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