Though slightly uneven, this suspenseful coming-of-age tale packs a punch.
A teen must protect his family from a powerful gang in Farley’s debut.
In the summer of 1978, Arcangel Valley is ruled by the Blackjacks, a notorious gang with deep roots in the dead-end California town. Fifteen-year-old RJ has other things on his mind, such as his disabled little brother, Charley, whose unspecified foot deformity gives him a mysterious “greater purpose,” and the death of his father, a Vietnam War veteran. But when the Blackjacks order RJ to harass the mysterious old man who’s moved into their territory, RJ must protect himself and his family without losing his soul. As his attempts to outsmart the Blackjacks grow desperate and the old man becomes a confidant, RJ unearths shocking family secrets and wrestles with his conscience and past trauma. Though RJ confronts weighty topics—among them corruption and redemption; the power of storytelling; and the haunting aftermath of war—his evocative, unflinching narration keeps the pages turning. However, the author’s heavy-handed literary and religious symbolism, drawn from The Canterbury Tales and Catholicism, sometimes overshadows realistic plot and character development. Charley, nearly defined by his deformity, is barely developed despite his closeness to RJ; the ending is somewhat far-fetched. Many characters, including RJ, appear to be White. RJ’s best friend is brown-skinned and Latinx.
Though slightly uneven, this suspenseful coming-of-age tale packs a punch. (Historical fiction. 16-18)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64129-117-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Exciting concept; underwhelming execution.
Once a year in the city-island of Caldella, the powerful Witch Queen leaves her Water Palace to find her true love, whom she must drown to appease the dark tide of the ever hungry ocean.
Thomas Lin is the only boy who’s ever escaped—by convincing the last Witch Queen to drown herself instead. Ever since then, her sister, Eva, who is the new Witch Queen, has been unable to appease the dark tide—she’s felt nothing for the boys she’s sacrificed. When Thomas is chosen a second time, Lina, a town girl with a crush, decides to rescue Thomas from the Water Palace and volunteer as sacrifice to make sure both Thomas and her own brother stay safe. As Lina and Eva spend more time together, they realize that they have a surprising amount in common: their love for their siblings, their desperation to change the sacrificial system, and their desire for one another. The close third-person narration is focalized alternately through Lina and Eva, and although Lina’s perspective provides greater depth, the narrative voice for each is removed, with more telling than showing. Characters are racially ambiguous but often implied through skin tone to be nonwhite. Diverse sexualities and gender expressions are also implied, but heteroromanticism is disappointingly the default.
Exciting concept; underwhelming execution. (Fantasy. 16-18)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0998-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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