Ajeemah is taking his son Atu to be wed when they are seized by slavers and shipped to separate plantations in Jamaica. Refusing to accept that their freedom is permanently lost, both struggle to comprehend their misfortune; each finds a way to escape—Atu by killing himself, Ajeemah by raising a new family and surviving until slavery is outlawed decades later. Each moment here of the Jamaican-born poet's terse, melodious narrative is laden with emotion; even when Berry pauses to describe the slave trade, his island patois is rich and evocative, drawing readers irresistibly into Atu's shattered world and Ajeemah's profound grief for the life and children left behind. In the end, when Ajeemah celebrates his daughter's marriage, she admires his fortitude but—as a free Jamaican- -silently rejects her African name and heritage. Brilliant, complex, powerfully written. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1992
ISBN: 0-06-021043-5
Page Count: 84
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
A worthy conclusion to a story that is, at its core, about love and letting go.
Tea prepares to make the greatest sacrifice in this impassioned finale to the Bone Witch series.
In the present, Fox angrily searches for his bone witch sister, Tea, who will stop at nothing to save him from the half-life he has been living since she raised him from the dead. In the past, Tea is on a quest for First Harvest, the magical plant she needs to revive her brother, which she can only use after acquiring shadowglass. Conjuring shadowglass requires a black heart, and Tea’s darkens as she continues to wield dark magic to achieve her goals. More and more lose faith in her when she becomes plagued with haunting visions and, in her sleep, kills an innocent with her own hands. But someone is using a blight rune to transform people into terrifying daevalike monsters, and it may very well be the same traitor in Tea’s inner circle who has been poisoning her. Though the storylines never truly converge, readers gain insight into Tea’s destructive choices and their aftereffects. Exhaustive explanations of asha history are important to the plot but weighty. Transgender Likh’s exploration of her identity honestly complements Tea’s own journey toward self-discovery, and readers will root for both their romances. Characters have a variety of skin tones, but race is not significant in this world.
A worthy conclusion to a story that is, at its core, about love and letting go. (maps, kingdom guide) (Fantasy. 13-adult)Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-6060-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Indispensably candid.
Following the discovery of her older sister, Alice, self-harming on the bathroom floor, Lily grapples with her own increasingly perilous mental health.
Burdened with an ultrarigid academic schedule and a perfectionist’s mindset, Lily Larkin, a 16-year-old implied White girl, daily fends off pervasive anxiety and intrusive thoughts. For Lily, all her extra hard work means survival: “I can stop my family—and myself—from unraveling.” When she learns that Alice (diagnosed with bipolar disorder) will be returning home after two months of treatment, Lily braces herself for the reappearance of a sister she might not recognize. At school, she reluctantly garners the attention of Micah Mendez, a Mexican American boy hounded by depression and a troubled past. Micah, it seems, knows all about Lily thanks to his time at the same treatment center as Alice. Paired for a school art project, Lily and Micah grow closer, drawing on the power of words to express their truths to each other—and even their peers—in anonymous art installations. Lily, meanwhile, finds it hard to reestablish a relationship with Alice even as false starts send the sisters spiraling into potential calamity. A sprawling, engrossing read, Stewart’s latest succeeds in mapping out the toll of anxiety disorder with scrupulous, cleareyed detail. It’s mostly a hard, messy path for Lily, laden with moments of self-violence and acute tension. Above all, however, there’s an overpowering sense of hope underlined by an achingly sincere message: Speak up and get help if needed.
Indispensably candid. (author's note, resources) (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-984848-86-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
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