A well-plotted story that gives a voice to an offbeat protagonist.
In this novel by former TV writer Moss (The Rosenberg Espionage Case, 1999, etc.), a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome exposes a devastating corporate-technology secret.
Alex attends Mason Middle School, where he finds it a struggle not to cause occasional disruptions. Then, one day, an experimental, educational computer program, developed by the creators of Calliope—the “world’s most powerful super-computer”—causes him and other kids with special needs to have fits. After a monitor explodes during a test run, Alex sees what he thinks are “fruit flies” whenever he passes a Calliope screen. Concerned for his health, his mother takes him to Calliope headquarters for additional testing. But while they’re there, she appears to be hypnotized by Calliope tech, leaving Alex in the hands of the company’s scientists. Luckily, his classmate Sara Cohen is concerned about his school absences and tracks him down. Later, when the teens join a group of renegade bookstore owners and fight against supercomputer “Sophie,” they stumble upon a greater issue. Kids who cause trouble go to Calliope “Wellness Camp”; and soon Alex and Sara are shuffled into the re-education program. Moss, who wrote for such TV shows as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and She-Ra: Princess of Power, employs a first-person voice that’s very close to that of the narrator of Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The author’s attentiveness to technical details brings to mind Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011), although the dystopia in this novel is more fascist in tone. The story’s overall pace is fast and focused. However, it might have been better if Moss slowed things down during certain important scenes, as when Alex and Sara witness a murder. The surplus of side characters can be confusing, particularly during the final battle. Still, readers will likely be too engaged with the plot to be overly concerned.
A well-plotted story that gives a voice to an offbeat protagonist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73279-102-2
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Pedernales Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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