Like most of the boys in the Tests, this one can’t compete.
Another debut. Another dystopia. Another leading man called by a number.
In Bodger’s soft dystopia, years of legislation restricting families to one child has resulted in a significant imbalance—roughly six boys to every one girl. In Koyanagar, a walled city-state formed on the edge of India in 2042, the small coterie of women in charge has created a series of tests to select the boys who will be lucky enough to win wives. A lottery determines competitors; girls are primped while boys compete, with death as a possible outcome; and no one is happy (sound familiar?). Sudasa narrates in poetry, and Contestant Five (readers do not learn his name until the very end, unless they read the flap copy that completely destroys that particular element of suspense) narrates in prose. They both hate the Tests and wish there were another way. Contestant Five could win but doesn’t want to; Sudasa just wants to live her life. It’s a match, although neither of them immediately sees how they can help each other. Set over just three days, this novel is a mishmash of tropes that have been done better elsewhere, sophomoric poetry that uses typographic elements for emphasis (“n#mber”), and weak characterization with about as much Indian flavor as the curry powder supermarkets sold in the 1950s.
Like most of the boys in the Tests, this one can’t compete. (Dystopian romance. 10-14)Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-39153-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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