Personal and cultural complexities distinguish this fresh and fascinating look at a lawless future.
The world’s geopolitical balance rests on a genetically modified sea monster and his 17 1/2–year-old trainer. Can she resist the adrenaline rush of a pirate’s life to keep the world aright?
In Skrutskie’s debut, swelling seas and a one-world government rearrange national boundaries. Pirates, quite a few who are born on sovereign flotillas, are the new world threat. The governments hire businesses like the one owned by Cassandra Leung’s mom, which create genetically modified sea monsters called Reckoners to destroy the pirates and their vessels. Cassandra, like her dad, trains the aquatic escorts. On her first voyage, her first Reckoner, a terrapoid—a half-turtle, half–marine iguana hybrid “the size of a football field” and named Durga—is killed while trying to protect her assigned ship from the attack of the pirate leader Santa Elena. Cassandra hesitates too long in killing herself, per her dad’s instruction in order to keep the proprietary secrets, and Santa Elena captures her. Somehow, the pirate leader secures her own marine escort and coerces Cassandra to rear the creature. Even as the author offers pure speculative fiction, she also gives readers a terrifically believable heroine with Cassandra, who makes some all-too-human decisions to survive. Most fascinatingly, the author creates a multicultural world led by two women of color—Asian-American Cassandra and ethnically ambiguous Santa Elena—who are larger than life without resorting to stereotypes.
Personal and cultural complexities distinguish this fresh and fascinating look at a lawless future. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4691-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders.
Andy and Shelbi find love while navigating mental health challenges in suburban Georgia.
It all starts when 18-year-old Andy Criddle drunkenly texts the wrong number. The mistaken recipient ends up offering him emotional support and asks him not to drive drunk. Despite agreeing, he gets behind the wheel—and into an accident. After being charged with a DUI, Andy, the son of a congresswoman running for Senate, is barred from attending his graduation and shamed in the press. Meanwhile, 16-year-old AP physics student Shelbi Augustine, who finds car crashes interesting for scientific reasons, picks up Andy’s wallet at the scene of the wreck. She returns it to him in class and gives him a pep talk before nervously rushing away. The judge orders Andy to complete community service at a soup kitchen where Shelbi regularly volunteers, and when their paths cross again, she confesses that she was the person he was texting. As they grow closer, Shelbi, who has bipolar depression, has Andy sign a friendship agreement. Rule No. 6 reads, “Do not, under any circumstances, fall in love with Shelbi.” Naturally, this is a rule destined to be broken. The comfort and ease the two have are mirrored by Stone’s breezy writing. Her casual tone acts as a potent salve for the heart-wrenching scenes and the searing portrayal of healing. Most characters are Black; Andy’s dad is White, and Shelbi’s paternal grandmother is from India.
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders. (author’s note) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-30770-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Fear the reaper(s)…but relish this intelligent and entertaining blend of dark humor and high death tolls.
Death proves impermanent in this sequel to Scythe (2016).
In a world run by the (almost) all-powerful and (almost) omniscient artificial intelligence Thunderhead, only the Honorable Scythes deal permanent death to near-immortal humans. Yet a growing contingent of scythes, feared and flattered by society and operating outside the Thunderhead’s control, are proving rather dishonorable. No longer apprentices, 18-year-olds Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch realize “the scythedom is…high school with murder” as they watch their fellow scythes jockey for power and prestige. Citra now gleans as Scythe Anastasia, questioning the status quo but also opposing the homicidally enthusiastic “new-order” scythes and their dangerous demagogue. Self-appointed as Scythe Lucifer, Rowan hunts other scythes whom he deems corrupt. Meanwhile, the existentially troubled Thunderhead questions its role as both creation and caretaker of humanity, sworn not to take life but fearing that its utopia will otherwise collapse into dystopia. Nationality and race are minimally mentioned—ethnic biases and genocide are considered very gauche—yet a population that defies death, aging, sickness, poverty, and war risks becoming bleakly homogenous, alleviated only by “unsavories” and scythes. This sequel digs deeper into Shusterman’s complex world and complicated characters, offering political maneuvering, fatal conspiracies, and impending catastrophe via a slowly unfurling plot and startling bursts of action.
Fear the reaper(s)…but relish this intelligent and entertaining blend of dark humor and high death tolls. (Science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7245-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
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