A darkly humorous, rapid-fire read in which the living are sometimes scarier than the dead.
Her family has been a target of slurs—“trailer dogs,” “rednecks”—but she may still save the town.
Eighteen-year-old Zora Novak is down two parents and two fingers, living in a trailer on the town outskirts with her sister, Sadie, because their mom’s missing and father’s in jail. Deceptively quaint Addamsville, Indiana, relies on a thriving ghost-tourism industry, although Zora’s the only person who can see the departed. But the ghosts (thankfully gloomy, not gruesome) are restless, and there’s a shape-shifting, ghost-eating firestarter on the loose, destroying property and possibly possessing people. Like a profane, brunette Buffy, Zora has a gift but needs a Scooby gang to help her save Addamsville. Reluctantly allying with reformed (maybe) firestarter Bach and insufferably perfect cousin Artemis, Zora attempts to dispatch the firestarter, sabotage a ghost-hunting TV crew, solve mysteries, survive high school…and avoid maiming, death, or serious jail time. Abrasive, defensive, and secretly sentimental, Zora doesn't let social pariahdom stand in the way of fulfilling her paranormal duties. Zappia (Eliza and Her Monsters, 2017, etc.) both invokes and subverts poverty porn, dark tourism, and small-minded small-town life in this arch look at social inequalities that doesn't skimp on supernatural spookiness, slapstick, or teenage snark. Main characters follow a white default, but there is some ethnic diversity in secondary characters.
A darkly humorous, rapid-fire read in which the living are sometimes scarier than the dead. (Paranormal. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-293527-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A gripping tribute to resilience.
A girl with amnesia and a boy suspected of harming his girlfriend overcome adversity to find the answers they seek.
A 17-year-old girl wakes up in a ditch, disoriented and with no memory of who she is or what happened. Found by the Alton, Oregon, police, she is brought to the station. Soon after, Wayne Boone, a man claiming to be her father, shows up. He has photos of her on his phone and her high school ID card, with the name Mary Boone. Wayne convinces the police to release Mary into his custody. The more time Mary spends with Wayne, however, the weirder things get: He’s unaware of her food allergy, and as her memories start to return, they don’t conform with Wayne’s versions of her life. In the town of Washington City, across the Willamette River, Drew is in a bad place. His girlfriend, Lola, has disappeared, and Drew was the last person to see her. His adoptive dads and cousin are the only ones who support him; everyone else, including the sheriff, thinks he’s responsible for Lola’s disappearance. Intent on finding Lola, Drew finds help in an unlikely ally, Lola’s best friend, Autumn, who is the sheriff’s daughter. But will they find Lola in time? The two immersive storylines bring to life the trials and frustrations each main character faces in this debut, which is a thrilling delight right up to the unexpected and bittersweet conclusion. Most characters are cued white; one of Drew’s dads is Guatemalan.
A gripping tribute to resilience. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728270111
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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