The pivotal moment this Jamaican import describes deserves a more artful vehicle for the telling.
A historical novel examines racial tensions in mid-20th-century Bermuda.
Desma Johnson is a black Bermudian girl who is a week away from her 16th birthday. Growing up in a segregated Bermuda in 1959, she’s a brilliant scholar, having earned the Empire Scholarship, beating out many other “coloured” and white students in the Commonwealth. Her father’s gift to her was to be his treating her entire class to the movies. But this is where Desma’s troubles begin. Rumors of a boycott on the island begin circulating. The Progressive Group, said to be initiators of the boycott, seeks to end racial segregation in Bermuda, and they plan to do so by boycotting the movie theaters. Desma is upset by this development, but as the anxieties around the boycott build, she becomes aware of the racial tensions that she had previously been sheltered from in her paradise home of Bermuda. She comes to see a new, less favorable side of neighbors who were once friendly and supportive and realizes the harshness of the shadow that racial divisions cast over the island. In frequently expository prose, Maxwell tells a simple tale of a moment in a country’s history that is often erased. One-dimensional characters, jerky dialogue, and an awkward and excessive use of metaphors often take away from the significance of the revolution that should be at the center of this story.
The pivotal moment this Jamaican import describes deserves a more artful vehicle for the telling. (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-976-8267-08-5
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Blouse & Skirt Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Good as a nostalgia trip for the original fans of Fear Street—but it will probably leave their children cold.
A tale of revenge on Fear Street—nothing new there.
It’s 1950. Beth’s father is just about to open his own stable after years of working for thankless Martin Dooley, but Martin and his thugs can’t let that happen. All Beth’s “tricks”—magic taught her by her grandmother—can’t save her beloved father, and she has to run from his murderers. Decades later, a mysterious girl starts hanging out with Michael Frost and his friends. After a snowmobile accident in which it seems they kill another teen, the friends begin getting threatening messages…and Michael’s friends start dying. Does the new girl need help—or is something else going on? Stine’s third of six new Fear Street novels is longer and more violent than the originals, as well as more histrionic, melodramatic, and unrealistic. Timelines and characters don’t quite make sense, and the whole reads like a string of plot clichés drawn from a hat. It’s the same easily read, jokey “horror” Stine’s made bank on for decades. Today’s horror readers know there are better scares out there.
Good as a nostalgia trip for the original fans of Fear Street—but it will probably leave their children cold. (Horror. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05163-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin’s Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Not a breakout but worth a look.
New school, new rules, and a mysterious new…friend?
Fourteen-year-old Henry Walker and his mother relocated from Texas to Seattle so he could take advantage of a military dependent’s scholarship at the prestigious Clinton Academy while his father is in Afghanistan. Bethany befriends Henry right away and introduces him to another girl, who crushes on him. Though he’s really not ready to say he’s gay out loud, Henry’s more interested in enigmatic, intelligent, and (usually) unfriendly Julius Drake. (Lacking clues to the contrary, readers will infer that the principal characters are white.) When the popular star of the swim team attempts suicide and adults inexplicably decide Henry and Julius might have bullied him, Bethany and the boys investigate, uncovering a social media–centered mystery. Someone is catfishing the popular guys in Clinton Academy, and only Henry and his new friends can expose them. Gay-romance writer Harris aims at her youngest audience yet with this first title in the Life and Times of Julius Drake series, an obvious homage to Sherlock Holmes. The Holmes-ian Julius and Watson-esque Henry even have a Mrs. Hudson in Julius’ nanny, Mrs. Hundstead. (The boys’ relationship is tame, though this school is like many others in its hormone-fueled rumor mill.) The reason the boys begin the investigation could not be more flimsy; however, the mystery heats up three-quarters of the way in, and the denouement and setup for Book 2 are satisfying.
Not a breakout but worth a look. (Mystery. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62649-448-0
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Triton Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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