A flawed novel examining a worthy subject.
A schizophrenic English youth is destined for tragedy.
Greg is a dysfunctional, shy, white teen with a severe lisp and a dark, muddled past. In an effort to make a connection, his English teacher asks him to write everything down in a journal. Rice's debut novel is made up of that journal's pages interspersed with police reports and interviews between officers and Greg's acquaintances. As Greg pines for a girl he barely knows and rants about Them, spiderlike creatures that only he can see, readers will quickly realize that Greg is schizophrenic and in dire need of help. Through Greg, the author shines a light on the many ways society fails those with mental illness, and readers are held captive in Greg's psyche hoping for someone, anyone to notice that this boy needs a second look. The interspersed police reports provide readers with their only glimpse of the world outside of Greg's point of view, and the tragic tone these interviews take does little to give readers hope. These interviews muck up the book's pacing a bit. Greg's story is quickly revealed to end in violent tragedy, and after 200 or so pages of Greg's brooding, many readers will be impatient. Supporting characters are poorly drawn, most given just one or two defining characteristics, and the police interviews don't flesh them out.
A flawed novel examining a worthy subject. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68144-528-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Mobius
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)
In the three years following Eden’s brutal rape by her brother’s best friend, Kevin, she descends into anger, isolation, and promiscuity.
Eden’s silence about the assault is cemented by both Kevin’s confident assurance that if she tells anyone, “No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever,” and a chillingly believable death threat. For the remainder of Eden’s freshman year, she withdraws from her family and becomes increasingly full of hatred for Kevin and the world she feels failed to protect her. But when a friend mentions that she’s “reinventing” herself, Eden embarks on a hopeful plan to do the same. She begins her sophomore year with new clothes and friendly smiles for her fellow students, which attract the romantic attentions of a kind senior athlete. But, bizarrely, Kevin’s younger sister goes on a smear campaign to label Eden a “totally slutty disgusting whore,” which sends Eden back toward self-destruction. Eden narrates in a tightly focused present tense how she withdraws again from nearly everyone and attempts to find comfort (or at least oblivion) through a series of nearly anonymous sexual encounters. This self-centeredness makes her relationships with other characters feel underdeveloped and even puzzling at times. Absent ethnic and cultural markers, Eden and her family and classmates are likely default white.
Eden’s emotionally raw narration is compelling despite its solipsism. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: March 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4935-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come.
A heady blend of courtly double-crossing, Faerie lore, and toxic attraction swirls together in the sequel to The Cruel Prince (2018).
Five months after engineering a coup, human teen Jude is starting to feel the strain of secretly controlling King Cardan and running his Faerie kingdom. Jude’s self-loathing and anger at the traumatic events of her childhood (her Faerie “dad” killed her parents, and Faerie is not a particularly easy place even for the best-adjusted human) drive her ambition, which is tempered by her desire to make the world she loves and hates a little fairer. Much of the story revolves around plotting (the Queen of the Undersea wants the throne; Jude’s Faerie father wants power; Jude’s twin, Taryn, wants her Faerie betrothed by her side), but the underlying tension—sexual and political—between Jude and Cardan also takes some unexpected twists. Black’s writing is both contemporary and classic; her world is, at this point, intensely well-realized, so that some plot twists seem almost inevitable. Faerie is a strange place where immortal, multihued, multiformed denizens can’t lie but can twist everything; Jude—who can lie—is an outlier, and her first-person, present-tense narration reveals more than she would choose. With curly dark brown hair, Jude and Taryn are never identified by race in human terms.
A rare second volume that surpasses the first, with, happily, more intrigue and passion still to come. (map) (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31035-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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