Grandeur and heart fuel this thought-provoking fantasy.
A boy travels to a magical realm on his birthday in this middle-grade fantasy.
It’s the winter of 1944, and Elias Olmstead lives with his mother in a basement apartment on New York City’s Upper West Side. His father, a soldier named Daniel, has been reported lost behind enemy lines in Europe. The boy’s mother, Catherine, works at Saks Fifth Avenue, and Elias awaits her eagerly because today is his 10th birthday. When she’s late coming home, he decides to meet her, confident he knows her route. But some street toughs chase him into Central Park. He soon finds a statue of a beautiful woman whose staff glows and points to a tunnel. On the other side, the park is no longer snowy but lush with greenery. The boys chasing Elias have morphed into fierce creatures, but he’s saved by a centaur named Belarius. The centaur explains that this world is called Enralak, then takes Elias to meet an army of talking bears living in caves. The adventure becomes even stranger when Elias partners with Saeil, a feral boy who possesses a locket and a picture of a woman who looks just like Catherine. Later, Elias learns of a prophecy that describes a human among Enralak’s fantastic beings—one capable of changing life for the better. Harlow brings sweetness and light to middle-grade audiences in this well-balanced fantasy. There’s a mystical pulse to every depiction, as in a forest sunrise in which everything “looked as if it had been dusted lightly in a fine layer of sparkling silver sugar.” Elias continues to make remarkable friends throughout the narrative, including Fossa, a kind of giant otter, who says we must not “inflict pain on others because of our own pain.” The villain, the centaur Sibelius, looms in the background until the end. The story crescendos wonderfully as the author posits symmetry between Enralak and Elias’ world, characterized by doppelgängers and art shared through dreams. The prose will give middle-grade readers a vocabulary workout, as a crystal ball is described as having “putrid, nefarious contents.” A clever, self-assured finale should leave fans hungry for Harlow’s next work.
Grandeur and heart fuel this thought-provoking fantasy.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-7371523-0-9
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Caribou Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
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