A fresh, enthusiastic, and wholly satisfying take on a familiar subgenre.
Teens with newfound powers may be the only ones who can stop an ancient evil from rising in Echlin (Gone, 2002) and Watrous’ (If You Follow Me, 2010) supernatural mystery.
Laurel Goodwin gets worried when she awakens one morning and sees big sis and bestie Ivy isn’t in their Airstream trailer in Cascade, Oregon. Ivy’s note still leaves Laurel anxious since the handwriting doesn’t quite match her sister’s. She and mom Sheila, however, are reluctant to involve authorities, fearing Child Protective Services will reopen Sheila’s old negligence case and split the family apart. Ivy’s friends haven’t seen her, and hunky new kid in school, Jasper Blake, is also looking for her. He’s been “tutoring” her, and Laurel’s shocked to learn both Ivy and Jasper have special abilities. This validates Laurel’s ominous dream in which Ivy displays her power—as a masked man’s kidnapping victim. According to an ancient prophecy, an evil force called Druj will rise during a lunar eclipse unless four people with special powers unite. Such powers could also help find Ivy. Unfortunately, two possibilities are Cascade’s resident mean girls, Peyton Andersen and Mei Rosen, who may be disinclined to help if for no other reason than spite. Supernatural teens in literature are old hat, but Echlin and Watrous inject their novel with zeal and ingenuity. Characters, for one, are expertly drawn. Jasper can’t be one of the select four since his power, as he enigmatically states, has caused harm. Similarly, Laurel’s first-person voice intermittently gives way to perspective from Peyton and Mei, providing both with much-needed sympathy. The narrative playfully reveals supertalents one at a time while the greatest mystery is who the demon-esque Druj will inhabit, if it hasn’t already done so. There are perhaps a few too many references to Jasper’s “incredible” green eyes or Ivy’s beauty. Despite this, potential romance between Laurel and Jasper is superbly understated, and the ending even teases a sequel.
A fresh, enthusiastic, and wholly satisfying take on a familiar subgenre.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-942645-64-1
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Geek & Sundry
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Aspiring filmmaker/first-novelist Chbosky adds an upbeat ending to a tale of teenaged angst—the right combination of realism and uplift to allow it on high school reading lists, though some might object to the sexuality, drinking, and dope-smoking. More sophisticated readers might object to the rip-off of Salinger, though Chbosky pays homage by having his protagonist read Catcher in the Rye. Like Holden, Charlie oozes sincerity, rails against celebrity phoniness, and feels an extraliterary bond with his favorite writers (Harper Lee, Fitzgerald, Kerouac, Ayn Rand, etc.). But Charlie’s no rich kid: the third child in a middle-class family, he attends public school in western Pennsylvania, has an older brother who plays football at Penn State, and an older sister who worries about boys a lot. An epistolary novel addressed to an anonymous “friend,” Charlie’s letters cover his first year in high school, a time haunted by the recent suicide of his best friend. Always quick to shed tears, Charlie also feels guilty about the death of his Aunt Helen, a troubled woman who lived with Charlie’s family at the time of her fatal car wreck. Though he begins as a friendless observer, Charlie is soon pals with seniors Patrick and Sam (for Samantha), stepsiblings who include Charlie in their circle, where he smokes pot for the first time, drops acid, and falls madly in love with the inaccessible Sam. His first relationship ends miserably because Charlie remains compulsively honest, though he proves a loyal friend (to Patrick when he’s gay-bashed) and brother (when his sister needs an abortion). Depressed when all his friends prepare for college, Charlie has a catatonic breakdown, which resolves itself neatly and reveals a long-repressed truth about Aunt Helen. A plain-written narrative suggesting that passivity, and thinking too much, lead to confusion and anxiety. Perhaps the folks at (co-publisher) MTV see the synergy here with Daria or any number of videos by the sensitive singer-songwriters they feature.
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02734-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: MTV Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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