A somewhat entertaining, fast-paced journey that fizzles at the end.
A teenager runs away to Seattle, hoping to locate her missing sister.
Fifteen-year-old Eleanor idolizes her older sister, Sam, despite their being complete opposites: Sam is outgoing and wild, while socially awkward Eleanor is known as Little Miss Perfect, always doing the right and safe thing. After Sam runs away from home, the only communication she has with Eleanor are three postcards sent from Seattle. Eleanor decides to trace her 18-year-old sister’s footsteps, leaving her messages and hopping on a bus to find her. But when Sam doesn’t meet her at the bus depot, Eleanor, who has no real plan, has to learn how to survive on her own while searching the city for her sister. While the close bond between the girls is well depicted through flashbacks, the reveal of an important secret ultimately feels anticlimactic. A major plot point relies too heavily on chance and coincidence to be fully believable. While the color scheme, cityscapes, and background illustrations are atmospheric, the manga-inspired drawing style comes across as dated and flat. The depiction of the fabricated stories Eleanor tells is intriguing, as are the themes of friendship, living in the moment, and maintaining hope; unfortunately, none are thematically strong enough to resonate. The emotional impact of Eleanor’s experiences is diluted by her at times humorous narration. Eleanor and the main cast read as White.
A somewhat entertaining, fast-paced journey that fizzles at the end. (Graphic novel. 12-15)Pub Date: April 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-50023-4
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Medieval monastic melodrama, murder, mayhem.
Despite any number of apparitions and a (real) setting with the tantalizing name of Disibodenberg, Dyrek’s debut is anything but comical. When a knight returning from the First Crusade brings not only the fabled Spear of Longinus, said to be the one that pierced Jesus’ side, but murderous pursuers determined to reclaim the relic for political purposes, the seemingly peaceful German monastery begins to look like a killing field. As the corpses accumulate, two teenage sleuths—bookish monk Volmar and a visionary new anchorite, or hermit, named Hildegard (yes, that one, the one from Bingen)—search for clues to killers and causes, uncover an older crime and struggle to reconcile their own fleshly desire for one another with their spiritual vows and commitments. This last becomes a major theme, resolved at last with laudable (if slightly alien to faithless modern readers) mutual agreement that the soul’s imperatives must ever trump the body’s. The author also strews her tale with generous measures of intrigue, sudden violence, poison, evidence to decipher, secrets waiting to be revealed, specters either holy (in Hildegard’s case) or otherwise and figures and incidents drawn from history. Despite some anachronisms and loose ends, a sturdy kickoff with a distinctly different duo of detectives. (Historical fantasy. 12-15)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-935462-39-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Luminis
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Horror with heart. (Horror. 12-15)
This spine-tingler plunges into the stuff of nightmares.
“The body was lying in a thicket,” it begins. Fourteen-year-old Maya doesn’t remember why she ran off the path in this dark forest. Two dead bodies lie on the ground, each turning its head with eyes aglow. A shadowy figure bends over a third body. Maya stumbles and screams. Her family finds her and guides her out of this terrifying forest, but when they reach their new home/business—a village hotel called the Rowan Tree—something chilling occurs: A police officer sent to investigate is the same person as the first dead body. Not a twin, not a doppelganger—the same person. Maya just knows. Fright and grisliness escalate. Someone unknown and unseen stalks Maya; a fox has an unnatural power to make her follow it; foxes are turning up disemboweled and decapitated—and not just foxes. The narration stays faithful to Maya’s third-person-limited perspective, so readers don’t know who’s good or bad any earlier than she does. Maya’s warm parents and dedicated older brother can’t shield her or the village from danger, and they become targets too. There’s nothing particularly unique or specific about Maya and her family, which works well here, as if this could happen to anyone. When clarity and answers come, they’re sad, satisfying and less supernatural than they first seemed.
Horror with heart. (Horror. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2397-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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