by Garth Nix ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2015
Slight but entertaining; even hobbled by cautious storytelling, it should satisfy genre fans
An author known for his imaginative worldbuilding tackles fantasy Regency romance.
Lady Truthful Newington—“Newt” to friends and family—has never seen the family heirloom, a powerful emerald, she’ll inherit when she’s 25. When her widowed father brings it out to show guests on her 18th birthday, it’s stolen. Headstrong and spirited, Truthful (as she is called in the third-person narration) heads to London to get it back. Strict rules govern aristocratic female behavior, so to facilitate her search she poses as a French male cousin, with the help of her great aunt, Lady Badgery, and a little glamour. Truthful’s disguise brings her under suspicion as one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s secret supporters, who are plotting to free him from imprisonment in Gibraltar. Her ruse also frees her to join forces with the handsome, mysterious Maj. Harnett. Pursuing the powerful, wily enchantress behind the theft, the two are captured and, mostly thanks to Truthful, barely escape drowning. Harnett holds women in low regard but after her true gender’s discovered, concerned for her damaged reputation, reluctantly proposes marriage and is indignantly rejected. After a meandering start, the novel, first published as an e-book in 2013, follows genre conventions dutifully, in characterization (plucky Truthful especially), plot, and setting, its aristocratic milieu bolstered by details of food, entertainment, and female dress.
Slight but entertaining; even hobbled by cautious storytelling, it should satisfy genre fans . (Regency fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236004-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
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by Patricia McCormick ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 2012
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Patricia McCormick ; illustrated by Iacopo Bruno
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by Malala Yousafzai with Patricia McCormick
by Rae Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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