A dramatic tale—or the first part of one, anyway—heavily steeped in tribal lore.
The young Cherokee seer struck by lightning in Abnormal (2014) acquires more extrasensory powers after a near-death experience in this partial sequel.
Rashly opening a long-sealed chamber in a cave he is exploring with his friend Chigger, Billy is bitten and knocked off a cliff by a flock of strange bats. Following a spirit conversation with his long-dead grandmother Awinita (her presence is signaled by whiffs of apple cider and pumpkin pie) about his “unfolding gift” for helping others, he wakes up in a hospital bed with an ability to see into people’s pasts and also to perceive evil. This is fortunate, because opening the cave also released the ancient, life-sucking Horned Serpent known as Uktena from the lake of soporific herbal tea it’s been held in and left Chigger, who had carried away a violet crystal once embedded in the serpent’s tail, possessed. These promising developments may help readers past the unvarnished infodumps and continual references to Cherokee characters and traditional practices that the author shoehorns into the story. With help from a gathering of “medicine people and stomp dance leaders,” Billy seems about to prevail—but then Robinson cuts off abruptly, leaving most of the conflict and all of the resolution for future episodes.
A dramatic tale—or the first part of one, anyway—heavily steeped in tribal lore. (Paranormal suspense. 11-13)Pub Date: April 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-939053-08-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: 7th Generation
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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