Readers who don’t mind a little brain spatter on the windshield will be happy they took this particular trip
The zombie apocalypse begins on a Venturer Scout camping trip in the hills outside of Los Angeles when Cassie’s would-be boyfriend, Mark, reanimates after an unfortunate paintball accident.
It soon becomes appallingly clear that Mark is just the first in a sudden, worldwide phenomenon. In very short order, Cassie and five other camping-trip refugees find themselves in a van headed across the country in hopes of finding the twin sister of one of her companions alive in New York City. Heartbreak, humor, a very large number of crushed skulls and even romance ensue. Titchenell avoids trying to explain the zombies, just plunging her protagonists into a landscape teeming with shambling corpses and littered with abandoned cars. As with any good road trip, the pleasure in this book resides mostly in the evolving relationships among the teens, who must progress from fractious individualism to solidarity in order to survive. For all its formulaic nature, this progress is accomplished with beautiful emotional honesty. The author provides some moments of grace amid the horror: A handful of survivors welcome the teens at the Tulsa Zoo; the kids have an epic movie night at Graceland. Cassie’s first-person “confessions” are smartly paced and voiced, and they end on just the right note.
Readers who don’t mind a little brain spatter on the windshield will be happy they took this particular trip . (Horror. 12-16)Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-939967-30-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Reminiscent of fairy tales and full of enchantment.
In this sequel to the 2022 series opener, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen by Shea Ernshaw, Sally must mend time itself.
It’s been a year since Sally married Jack Skellington and discovered her Dream Town origins, and she’s spread thin between performing her duties as Pumpkin Queen and managing relations among all the holiday realms. Arguments and misunderstandings have arisen between visitors and residents of each realm, so Sally proposes hosting cultural exhibitions to help smooth over their interactions, starting with one in Halloween Town. To help with the extra work, Sally takes on an apprentice—fellow rag doll Luna, a teen with dreams of going on adventures instead of following in the family business of writing bedtime stories. Chaos ensues during the festivities when a swapped potion ingredient opens a portal that sucks Sally and Luna into Time Town. Even worse, Halloween Town’s magical clock has been destroyed by a shadowy enemy, setting the realm’s timeline to the distant past. To get back to the Halloween Town of her present, Sally embarks on an adventure with Luna and their new friend, a dragon called Scorch. Sally, Luna, and Scorch make a fantastic trio, with Sally’s maturity and bravery contrasting with Luna’s wide-eyed youthfulness and Scorch’s desire to become a hero. Despite a slow start and stereotypical elements in some of the towns, the engaging lore and tense, thrilling race to fix time will engage readers.
Reminiscent of fairy tales and full of enchantment. (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781368089302
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Disney/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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