Good characterization, but the adventures could have used more excitement.
On a trip to Scotland, an American teenager and his dog fight an otherworldly battle between good and evil in this YA adventure.
Paul Wonder, 13, lives in Venice Beach, California, with his father, Noah, his aunt Rue, and his grandmother Bernice; his mother, Rebekah, died of cancer when he was 7. Magic, Paul’s golden retriever, became part of the family after mysteriously showing up in Paul’s bed three years ago. Only Paul has seen the dog’s eyes turn neon yellow and its fur turn sparkling gold at certain times, as when Magic saved him from a car accident. The family is deeply involved in Bible study, prayer, and church, but Paul shares a taste for adventure with Rue, who’s a police detective. When Noah, a filmmaker, announces plans to bring Paul, Rue, Bernice, and Magic to Scotland for his next job, Paul is thrilled: maybe he’ll see the Loch Ness monster! He has a great time sightseeing and enjoying Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival as well as making new, teenage friends, although one kid—ominously named Judas—scares him. Judas has a goth style and a monstrous, black dog named Goliath who seems as demonic as Magic seems angelic. When the crew gets to Loch Ness, Magic shows just how protective—and magical—a dog can be. In this debut novel, Gene captures Paul’s young-teenage point of view well, including his excitement about traveling, his love for his dog, his budding interest in girls, and how he misses his mother. Some details are unnecessarily repeated, but the book does give solid information about Scotland generally, Edinburgh specifically, and local tourist activities. The book’s title may lead readers to expect a Loch Ness–focused story, but most of the action takes place in Edinburgh; the characters don’t even reach the lake until the final five chapters. Also, although a few scary moments enliven things along the way, the book’s final confrontation is badly underdescribed: Magic’s battle is “amazing”—and then, in the next sentence, it’s over.
Good characterization, but the adventures could have used more excitement.Pub Date: May 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4908-7763-1
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister:...
A magnificently creepy fantasy pits a bright, bored little girl against a soul-eating horror that inhabits the reality right next door.
Coraline’s parents are loving, but really too busy to play with her, so she amuses herself by exploring her family’s new flat. A drawing-room door that opens onto a brick wall becomes a natural magnet for the curious little girl, and she is only half-surprised when, one day, the door opens onto a hallway and Coraline finds herself in a skewed mirror of her own flat, complete with skewed, button-eyed versions of her own parents. This is Gaiman’s (American Gods, 2001, etc.) first novel for children, and the author of the Sandman graphic novels here shows a sure sense of a child’s fears—and the child’s ability to overcome those fears. “I will be brave,” thinks Coraline. “No, I am brave.” When Coraline realizes that her other mother has not only stolen her real parents but has also stolen the souls of other children before her, she resolves to free her parents and to find the lost souls by matching her wits against the not-mother. The narrative hews closely to a child’s-eye perspective: Coraline never really tries to understand what has happened or to fathom the nature of the other mother; she simply focuses on getting her parents back and thwarting the other mother for good. Her ability to accept and cope with the surreality of the other flat springs from the child’s ability to accept, without question, the eccentricity and arbitrariness of her own—and every child’s own—reality. As Coraline’s quest picks up its pace, the parallel world she finds herself trapped in grows ever more monstrous, generating some deliciously eerie descriptive writing.
Not for the faint-hearted—who are mostly adults anyway—but for stouthearted kids who love a brush with the sinister: Coraline is spot on. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-380-97778-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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