Miklowitz (Past Forgiving, 1995, etc.), manipulating aspects of current events into a unclouded message, sends a Los Angeles teenager out of the frying pan and into the fire: He escapes his mother, whom he finds unreasonable and demanding, by moving in with his admired father, who turns out to be the leader of an underground militia. With the prospect of learning how to drive, shoot, perhaps even ride his father’s horse, Kyle’s summer in Michigan looks bright. An initial meeting with a local boy, Hiram, a 16-year-old buzz-cut bigot, and his unsavory friends takes some of the shine off, but all Kyle’s pleasure turns to alarm as he discovers that the house has been searched, sees the inventory of his father Ed’s “gun club,” and hears his anti-government talk. The club is on the march when the IRS seizes a neighbor’s farm for back taxes; in the armed confrontation, Hiram is killed. Kyle watches fearfully as Ed vengefully plants a van full of explosives beneath a federal building in Lansing, and, wrestling down his stubborn loyalty, escapes and blows the whistle. When the bomb goes off, the building has been partially evacuated, but the book trails off as the numbers of dead (53) and injured (119) are tallied. Several questions are unanswered, such as who shot Hiram, and the identity of the mysterious prowlers; still, along with the moderately suspenseful plot, Miklowitz creates a realistic conflict in Kyle between his hero worship and his emerging sense of right and wrong. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-15-201467-5
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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
Witty repartee between the central characters, as well as the occasional well-done set piece, isn’t enough to hold this hefty debut together. Teenagers Seth and Kendra are dropped off by traveling parents at their grandfather’s isolated Connecticut estate, and soon discover why he’s so reluctant to have them—the place is a secret haven for magical creatures, both benign and decidedly otherwise. Those others are held in check by a complicated, unwritten and conveniently malleable Compact that is broken on Midsummer Eve, leaving everyone except Kendra captive in a hidden underground chamber with a newly released demon. Mull’s repeated use of the same device to prod the plot along comes off as more labored than comic: Over and over an adult issues a stern but vague warning; Seth ignores it; does some mischief and is sorry afterward. Sometimes Kendra joins in trying to head off her uncommonly dense brother. She comes into her own at the rousing climax, but that takes a long time to arrive; stick with Michael Buckley’s “Sisters Grimm” tales, which carry a similar premise in more amazing and amusing directions. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59038-581-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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