All things considered, though, an unnecessary sequel.
Eight years after the fall of the Corp during older brother Anthem’s rebellion in Coda (2013), teenage Alpha struggles with its legacy.
Alpha left the Web for Los Angeles, needing to get away from tracking—the use of encoded music tracks as a mind-altering drug—as her childhood exposure left her with lingering problems, such as flashbacks and an addiction waiting to take root. In Los Angeles, she’s not only safe from the temptation to use, but able to pursue medical studies, with the lofty goal of finding a cure for the special addictions forced on her and her twin, Omega. When she gets the message that her older brother (and Coda’s protagonist), Anthem, is succumbing to ill health due to his use as a human battery by the Corp, she returns home to say goodbye, accompanied by a few others, including her Los Angeles–native boyfriend. But strange things are afoot—someone’s sending peculiar messages to Alpha, and tracks are somehow getting back to Los Angeles. Someone is resurrecting the Corp; Alpha must find out who it is and stop the Corp again. Slow pacing in the first half stretches the story thin, and the action-packed ending is disorienting, particularly due to the large number of characters any given pronoun could refer to. Although Alpha is a weaker protagonist than Anthem, most of the plot twists are effective.
All things considered, though, an unnecessary sequel. (Science fiction. 13 & up)Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7624-4950-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Running Press Teens
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unequivocally hilarious and delightful.
Valentine’s Day is the new Groundhog Day in Painter’s latest teen romance.
According to Emilie Hornby, “love is for planners,” and she is confident that Josh is the perfect boyfriend: He is well liked, academically gifted, and extremely handsome. So after dating him for three months, she adds “Say ‘I love you’ to Josh!!!!!!!!!!!” to her Valentine’s Day to-do list. But Fate has other plans for Emilie, and she ends up crashing her car into her surly chemistry lab partner Nick’s truck, losing a journalism fellowship due to a clerical error, and catching Josh kissing his beautiful ex in his car. After sleeping over at her grandma’s, Emilie wakes up in her own bedroom and discovers that it is Feb. 14 again. Trapped in a time loop where she repeatedly relives the day’s heartbreaking events, she tries to manipulate things in order to free herself. But tomorrow never seems to come, and she keeps finding her way back to Nick, who is not only annoyingly handsome, but surprisingly charming. Painter plucks readers’ every heartstring, from writing a sweet love story between two teens with very different views on romance to honestly depicting how Emilie’s parents’ messy divorce has impacted her feelings of self-worth. Italicized confessions at the beginnings of various chapters prove there is a playful side to Emilie that is further brought out by Nick, whose constant teasing leads to flirty banter. Main characters are cued as White.
Unequivocally hilarious and delightful. (Romance. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7886-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A page-turner of a fantasy-horror debut from a promising new voice.
Something’s rotten in the province of Sussex.
Twelve families rule over the Smoke, a U.K.-inspired nation, where the citizens battle to maintain control against an encroaching fog that brings death and destruction in the form of monstrous Phantoms. When Silas Darling, Merrick’s father and Sussex’s Manor Lord, dies unexpectedly, Merrick must abandon her New London social season and return to her ancestral home, Norland House. Surrounded by her older sister, Essie (who’s set to inherit the title Merrick desires for herself), and cousins (who are concerned mostly with propriety), she struggles to find answers. When Sussex and the family’s seat are threatened by mysterious border breaches and attacks, Merrick enters into a tenuous alliance with sentry Killian Brandon to unravel a Gordian knot of family secrets. The measured pacing, combined with Merrick’s emotional arc, together create magnificent tension. The worldbuilding skews gothic, thanks to the creepy manor house and mist-infected landscapes that are befitting of a Brontë sisters novel—albeit with the addition of possessed corpses that consume human flesh. The gender politics of this world allow women to inherit titles and fight Phantoms, yet they have little agency to act on their own behalf without entering into advantageous, heteronormative marriages, an aspect of the fantasy world that readers may find confusing. Primary characters read white.
A page-turner of a fantasy-horror debut from a promising new voice. (guide to manors and ruling families) (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593572375
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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