A challenging exploration of otherness and self-belief.
An ostracized girl and an abused boy look for acceptance and survival in an eschatological fantasy from Brown (Orphan Dreamer and the Missing Arrowhead, 2019, etc.).
Eleven-year-old Daniela Rose “Danny Rose” Cavanaugh lives in Florida and is an “Einstein-level genius.” Her dad believes she’s the next Messiah—his “Orphan Dreamer,” destined to save the world—but Danny is miserable. Being of mixed race, she is bullied for not being “black” enough. Her one friend, Ethan, is dying of cancer. Animals talk to her. She hears voices in her head and suffers from nosebleeds. Worst of all, a boy with no eyes haunts her dreams: “oily boy,” whose pain she feels as her own. He is 12-year-old Cillian Finn, who lives in Ireland. A child of rape, he is hated by his own mother. He is the object of beatings (and worse) and is snatched away from anyone who offers him kindness. Branded “Leviathan”—the Antichrist—Cillian is abused and despised, with his only respite coming when Daniela prays for him and sends him an angel. But Danny Rose has her own problems. Now 13 years old, she has been given a diamond, and it has transformed into a snowflake tattoo on her palm. Through this, she and Ethan travel out of their bodies to the biblical town of Gibeah in the year 1018 B.C.E. When they return, Ethan dies. Danny thinks it’s her fault. Self-harm lands her in the hospital, where she is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, depressive type, and to save Cillian, first she must understand and accept herself. Brown has crafted a dense and rather abstruse novel, tackling themes of belonging and deprivation within a sprawling nonlinear narrative. The second episode in a series, it lacks closure and the solid pacing of a self-contained story. The dialogue, however, resonates strongly; and though the book is not tightly focused, Brown has steeped its pages in a religiosity and portent that add weight to the difficult subject matter. Danny Rose and Cillian lead deeply unhappy lives. Their childhoods make for an uncomfortable telling, but they stick in the mind. For these two characters alone, readers may take a leap of faith.
A challenging exploration of otherness and self-belief.Pub Date: June 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-942849-05-6
Page Count: 427
Publisher: Rogue Reads, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
SEEN & HEARD
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