A great light read for graduates of John Kloepfer’s The Zombie Chasers (2010).
Rolling Hills is a boring, little hick town…until sundown.
Tenth-grader Charlie Harker leaves his expensive boarding school with visions of a summer break spent in Hawaii dancing in his head. He’s crushed when his mother tells him that she, his twin sister, Lilith, and Charlie will be rehabbing an old family manse into a bed-and-breakfast instead. He’s mortified to learn the family fortune—estranged Dad was a Tony Robbins–style self-help guru—is completely gone. Moments after waking in the driveway of the inn (after a monumental nap on the drive), Charlie is set upon by his shotgun-toting, deaf uncle Hal and local conspiracy theorist Miles Van Helsing. Trying at every turn to dodge actual work at the inn, even after the arrival of his TV-star brother, Johnny, Charlie is drawn into Miles’ investigation of strange happenings at the neighbor’s house. When the threat proves to be real, Charlie finds the only recourse is to run…but can he run fast enough? Leck’s sarcastic thriller features a distinctive monster that’s a fun twist on zombies…er…vampires. Given the final scene, a sequel is likely but not necessary. Scenes of Charlie and Co. fleeing “zompires” feels a bit like repetitive padding near the deus ex machina close, but Charlie’s snarky narration and skewed outlook make this a solid choice.
A great light read for graduates of John Kloepfer’s The Zombie Chasers (2010). (Horror. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77138-110-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest.
Does anyone who volunteers to spend a night in a derelict haunted hotel on a dare deserve what they get?
“The hotel is hungry. And we aren’t leaving here until it’s fed.” In what reads like a determined effort to check off every trope of the genre, Alexander sends new arrival Jasmine, along with two friends and several dozen other classmates, to the long-abandoned Carlisle Hotel for the annual seventh grade Dare—touching off a night of terror presided over by the leering, autocratic Grand Dame and complete with sudden gusts and blackouts, spectral visions, evil reflections in mirrors, skeletons, a giant spider, gravity reversals, tides of oily black sludge sucking screaming middle schoolers down the drain, and so much more. (No gore, though, aside from a few perfunctory drops of blood from one small scratch.) The author saves a twist for the end, and as inducement to read alone or aloud in the dark by flashlight, both his language and the typography crank up the melodrama: “He walks toward us, past the mirror, and I see it— / a pale white face in the reflection, / a gaunt, skeletal grimace, / with sharpened teeth / and hollow black eyes, staring at him / with its mouth / wide / open / in a scream….” Jasmine presents White; her closest friends are Rohan, whose name cues him as South Asian, and Mira, who has dark skin.
Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest. (Horror. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-70215-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
A thrilling conclusion to a beautifully crafted, heart-stopping trilogy.
This is the moment teens Seth, Anaya, and Petra have both been anticipating and dreading ever since aliens called cryptogens began attempting to colonize the Earth: the chance to defend their planet.
In an earlier volume, Seth, Anaya, and Petra began growing physical characteristics that made them realize they were half alien. Seth has wings, Petra has a tail, and Anaya has fur. They also have the power of telepathy, which Anaya uses to converse with Terra, a cryptogen rebel looking for human allies who could help stop the invasion of Earth. Terra plans to use a virus stored in the three teens’ bodies to disarm the flyers, which are the winged aliens that are both masterminding the invasion and enslaving the other species of cryptogens known as swimmers and runners. But Terra and her allies can’t pull any of this off without the help of Anaya, Seth, and Petra. Although the trio is anxious about their abilities, they don’t have much of a choice—the entire human race is depending on them for salvation. Like its predecessors, this trilogy closer is fast-paced and well structured. Despite its post-apocalyptic setting, the story is fundamentally character driven, and it is incredibly satisfying to watch each protagonist overcome their inner battles within the context of the larger human-alien war. Main characters read as White.
A thrilling conclusion to a beautifully crafted, heart-stopping trilogy. (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984894-80-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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