A comedy that is more mousy brown than black.
Teenage activism goes absurdist in this summer-camp novel.
When he met his hero Robert Drill, a Mark Zuckerberg–esque figure, then-13-year-old Gregor was inspired by Drill’s words: “You could feed the children of the world someday.” Now 16, when he finds out Drill is sponsoring a summer camp for teen activists, he leaps at the chance to attend—even if the presence of white teen movie star Ashley Woodstone doesn’t really fit with Gregor’s idea of Camp Save the World. Among the campers, most of them belittlingly called by their causes instead of their names, Gregor tries to become a better activist. It’s hard, though: Men’s Rights keeps throwing money at Gregor for his campaign and calling him white, even though Gregor is half-Mexican. The girl Gregor likes seems too cool for him and possibly gay. And worst of all, Ashley is just…everywhere. Yet as Gregor becomes friends with Ashley, looking beyond her kooky Eat Dirt campaign, he discovers a girl who could become more than his friend. Will he mess it all up, though, as the campers become caught up in a competition to win an internship with Drill and Gregor learns more about his hero? Aiming barbs at the seemingly infinite array of causes among today’s social justice warriors, Moldavsky’s satire is both funny and foulmouthed, but the broadly painted characters and not-nearly-wacky-enough plot keep it earthbound.
A comedy that is more mousy brown than black. (Fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-86751-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Point/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake
When a Romeo and Juliet mobster romance just isn't enough.
A year after a terrible experience, 17-year-old Rosa Alcantara is leaving home. She's left Brooklyn for Sicily, where she will be joining her sister in the family business: organized crime. An unlikable petty thief, Rosa thinks she's prepared for joining Cosa Nostra. But there are reasons beyond the Mafia to fear her ancestral home. Her attraction to Alessandro Carnevare, the scion of a rival (and stronger) Mafia house, can only get her into trouble. Both the Alcantaras and Carnevares are hiding an unbelievable secret. Alessandro, like the rest of his family, has a feline form: a monstrous panther. Meanwhile, Rosa discovers that the Alcantaras transform into enormous snakes. The shapeshifting makes for a more deadly rivalry—or a more twisted romantic pairing. On top of everything else, there's a kidnapped mob schoolgirl, a murdered mother, an attempted coup, family betrayals, a tragic lesbian relationship and whispers of a conspiracy, all told in choppy, infelicitous prose. (It's possible the clunkiness of the prose may be laid at the feet of the unidentified translator from the German.) A smaller subset of plot threads might have allowed room for Rosa to grow into a more than just a survivor.
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-200606-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Fans of the series who managed to enjoy volumes four and five will be pleased to find more of the same
The Caretakers fight the mind-controlling Echthroi through a tangle of timelines.
This penultimate volume in the Imaginarium Geographica series features such a massive ensemble of dead white men that it's difficult to follow their storylines. Don Quixote, Aristophanes and a badger quest for magic armor. Charles Williams, original characters Rose and Edmund, H.G. Wells, Richard Burton and a Clash of the Titans–style mechanical owl travel in time. J.R.R. Tolkien and Jules Verne meet a secret society so packed with dead authors that six William Blake clones ("We call them Blake's Seven") fit right in. A Chinese librarian speaking pidgin English betrays the questers, Medea meets Gilgamesh, and triple agents abound. A goblin market is peopled with characters from The Last Unicorn who make jokes from Blazing Saddles; Nathaniel Hawthorne paraphrases the 1988 cult classic They Live; a future Caretaker quotes Darth Vader. "Jules Verne show[s] goats descended from the herds of Genghis Khan in a county fair in an Indian nation in America … " Confused yet? If not, perhaps you'll be able to make sense of a resolution that relies on pasts that never were and futures that might-have-been.
Fans of the series who managed to enjoy volumes four and five will be pleased to find more of the same . (Fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1223-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
