Delivers a clear environmental message but is first and foremost a solid suspense novel.
Bernardez’s debut thriller follows a teen tracking giant monkey-eating eagles in the Philippines who must brave the elements when stranded in the mountains.
A typhoon all but destroys a Santa Teresa research facility in 1972, exposing wild animals to chemical reagents and enzymes. Monkey-eating eagles, having increased in size and aggression, attack livestock, forcing local hunters to drive the eagles out of town. The predators make a nest in San Antonio’s Caraballo Mountains, where biology student Marco Vega spots one in flight. A fascinated Marco heads to the mountains to find the eagle, bringing along his horse, Aladdin, and German shepherd, Gizmo. He runs into various adventurers and criminals, from treasure hunters seeking a World War II Japanese general’s fortune to drug traffickers on a marijuana farm. One of those groups, unappreciative of Marco’s presence, chases him until the teen ducks into an abandoned tunnel. Though he seems to have evaded his pursuers, Marco’s unprepared for his next mishap after trying to establish a “friendly alliance” with the eagles. As his worried family searches for him, Marco hopes to stave off hunger and thirst while befriending the predators. The author develops his protagonist before the journey even begins—Marco is a skilled martial artist and starts his summer break by getting lost camping with his hiking club. The giant eagles are formidable, but Bernardez opts to cast them as majestic creatures. Santa Teresa Mayor Gene Salvador, for example, initiates a plan to scare the eagles, stressing they not be killed. And animal lovers need not fret: there’s no lingering on eagle attacks. Dialogue is well-integrated into action scenes, especially during the search for Marco. But it’s clunky during quieter moments: Amanda, in flashback, tells hubby-to-be, “I’m so much in love with you…and it’s quite manifested by my actions when I’m by your side.”
Delivers a clear environmental message but is first and foremost a solid suspense novel.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63192-962-5
Page Count: 266
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
