A cathartic revenge fantasy of rape recovery, Quentin Tarantino–style, weakened by the stereotype-laden depiction of Romani...
A Welsh Romani girl faces appalling violence and responds with magic.
Seventeen-year-old Bethan has been raised by her clan’s drabarni, their witch. Her trips into town to sell her grandmother’s magical remedies are plagued by harassment from Silas, the clan chieftain’s son. She’s protected only by Martyn, a young townsman. Like Bethan, Martyn is diddicoy, mixed Romani and white. Unlike her, he’s been raised in a gadjo town and knows nothing about his Welsh Kale heritage. Still, he befriends her and tries to protect her from Silas—which puts him right in the line of fire of Silas’ violence. Silas and his friends beat Martyn nearly to death, then Silas rapes Bethan. The attack brings about Bethan’s nascent magical power, and she enacts revenge with horrific, blood-soaked magic. Though Bethan stresses that Silas and his cronies are exceptions to Romani morality, the only Romani young men depicted participate in rape and attempted murder. And while Gran explains that her magic doesn’t come from Romani blood, the clan’s caravan life is dominated by the drabarni’s dark spells. The result leaves an earnest narrator attempting to depict Romani life as neither criminal nor magical, while the tale itself is about Romani who are at least one or the other.
A cathartic revenge fantasy of rape recovery, Quentin Tarantino–style, weakened by the stereotype-laden depiction of Romani people . (Fantasy/horror. 14-17)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0186-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
An overlong and under-thought sci-fi exercise
A teenager longs for his dead girlfriend.
It’s been one year since Adam’s girlfriend, Marybeth, died in a freak drowning accident. Adam doesn’t mourn alone. Marybeth was known to the world as “Sunshine,” a singer/songwriter who touched the world with her melodies. Adam was her guitarist, joining Sunshine on stage and becoming famous as well, but that fame can’t help him cope with his loss. When a mysterious agency shows up on Adam’s doorstep offering to clone Sunshine and bring her back from the dead, Adam can’t resist helping them reconstruct her memories. Adam soon finds himself on a mysterious Pacific island, surrounded by scientists all day and hanging out with a strange, young woman named Genevieve by night. The unfolding story has a repetitive nature: Adam enters a memory, has reservations, is reassured, repeat. There’s a large valley in the middle where very little happens. As Adam helps rebuild Sunshine’s memories, readers get peeks into the couple’s troubled past, but there’s not much to surprise them in it. The quandary surrounding cloning is poked at here and there, but the conclusion feels inevitable, and readers will get antsy as the author slowly marches toward it. The primary cast seems to be a largely white one.
An overlong and under-thought sci-fi exercise . (Science fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6943-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Without sparks to sustain it, the story fizzles.
She’s going back in time; he’s going forward; they meet in 1961.
Still raw from her grandmother’s death, 18-year-old Abbi takes comfort in the fact that she is starting her freshman year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It’s the perfect place, one where the white narrator can make a fresh start and stay close to the memory of Grandma, who once walked the very same halls. But in her wildest dreams, Abbi never could have imagined just how close the two would be. For reasons she is desperate to understand, Abbi finds herself traveling backward through time, with each new stop providing clues to a mysterious family secret. To add to the intrigue, Abbi discovers she’s not the only time traveler. Will, a handsome white farm boy from 1927, is on his own journey forward through time, and Abbi gradually realizes that Will is not only linked to her family’s past, but also holds the key to her heart—past, present, and future. Though this may provide a quick fix for fans of time-travel romance, the novel fails to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack. While Abbi is a likable-enough protagonist, the story meanders, and the dialogue often feels stilted. However, the greatest disappointment is that a potentially delicious romance between Abbi and Will fails to gain any traction for the first two-thirds of the novel.
Without sparks to sustain it, the story fizzles. (Science fiction. 14-16)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63079-070-7
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Switch/Capstone
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
© Copyright 2025 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.
