A stylish, if not terribly original, preface to a paranormal series.
Hannah offers a debut YA novella about a Catholic teenager who discovers something deeply troubling about her ancestry.
Seventeen-year-old Malady, nicknamed “Mal,” never took her classes seriously in parochial school. She sometimes has flashes of uncontrollable anger, but she dismisses them as typical teenage angst; sometimes she dreams about strangers dying right before they do so in real life, but that’s probably just a coincidence, she thinks. It turns out that Mal’s family has a big secret that they need to tell her, although her parents keep insisting that she isn’t ready to hear it. Then Mal’s grandfather, whom she thought was long dead, comes for a visit. His identity has huge repercussions for Mal, as it means that she’s destined to fulfill a prophecy to be a leader in an upcoming war. She’s understandably upset by this news—but unfortunately, she doesn’t have much say in the matter. Hannah’s prose is sharp and snarky, and her characters speak in the familiar, perennially bored sarcasm often seen in modern YA fantasy: “I’m an Angel of Death,” says one, “or if you’d like, a Grim Reaper of some sort. But that’s not what’s got your sister’s feathers all riled up.” This slim volume builds slowly to the big revelation of Mal’s heritage, although the reader will likely see it coming from a mile off. (Who has a grandfather nicknamed “Lucie,” after all?) And although the author assembles a large array of otherworldly cast members, they don’t have much to do—at least not yet. At fewer than 80 pages, this book is a mere introduction to a forthcoming series in which Mal navigates a dark and dangerous supernatural world. Whether Hannah’s take on this well-trod fantasy territory will offer anything new remains to be seen.
A stylish, if not terribly original, preface to a paranormal series.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5255-0747-2
Page Count: 72
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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