A formulaic skeleton without any meat on its bones.
Lupa seeks revenge for the destruction of her village.
Lupa has arrived at the Inner Light monastery with her wolf companion, Coras. Convinced the monks there are the ones who killed her family, Lupa attacks, but she is disarmed and faced with a devastating truth. The Empress Salkis, fearing a prophecy that eight children would dethrone her, sought to kill them and disguised her assassins as monks so as to erode the girls’ trust in the very people who were destined to train them to fight against her. With her sister Kita dead, Lupa must take both her own place and Kita’s in this celestial sisterhood. The additional burden weighs heavily on her, and she has difficulty keeping her destructive tendencies in check. While fighting off an assassin, Lupa accidentally lights the monastery on fire, and after warning the others, she decides to leave on her own and go discover her true self. The story moves so quickly that there is little room for character development, making the narrative feel thin. This is not helped by multiple time skips jumping over years of character growth and resulting in a disjointed, breakneck pace that doesn’t give events room to breathe. The story opens with a brief recap of the first volume, making this entry accessible to new readers. The classic comic–style art is dynamic, highlighting a cast that is racially diverse.
A formulaic skeleton without any meat on its bones. (storyboards, character profiles) (Graphic fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781681160993
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Legendary Comics YA
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
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