An overcrowded but mostly compelling tale of a 16th-century Floridian princess.
A Native princess in Florida fulfills her destiny in debut author Daniels’ first graphic novel in a series.
Teenage Uleyli spends her time crafting items, such as a spider medallion that she’s able to trade to a traveling peddler. However, her parents wish that she, as their eldest daughter, would concentrate more on fulfilling her duties as princess of the village. When Uleyli is 15, Mocoso, the chief of another, nearby village—to which her father is forced to pay tribute—demands that the girl be given to him as a wife. Uleyli’s father agrees to this, but negotiates that the wedding not occur for a year. The princess, distraught, seeks advice from the village medicine woman, who likens her to a fly caught in a spider’s web: “The more you struggle against it, the more stuck you will become. But if you stop struggling and center yourself you will see that you are not the fly but are the spider sitting in the center.” Uleyli refuses to accept this notion; instead, she formulates a plan that revolves around a Spanish prisoner, Juan Ortiz, who was recently brought to the village. Her father wants to execute the young man as revenge for a Spanish raid that killed Uleyli’s grandmother, but the princess convinces him to spare Juan’s life. If she can help Juan escape captivity, she thinks, then maybe he’ll take her with him. Daniels tells his story in simple, easy-to-follow language, and the full-color illustrations by debut artist Mitra are lively and engaging. The story is based on a legendary real-life encounter between a Native woman and a Spanish sailor, which is why the book claims, somewhat reductively, to be about “Florida’s Pocahontas.” The main flaw of the book, however, is its brevity: Daniels stuffs a fairly complex, multievent plot into just 30 pages. Uleyli’s goals, and the threats to her village, change a number of times throughout the story, and, as a result, the conclusion doesn’t feel fully satisfying. Further graphic novels in the series are planned.
An overcrowded but mostly compelling tale of a 16th-century Floridian princess.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9774189-4-7
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Rebourne Communications
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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