A mysterious prophecy of things to come at the conclusion results in raised eyebrows and impatience for Volume 3.
En garde! Gear up for more sword fights and trolls as well as an appearance from Baba Yaga in this swashbuckling sequel.
Picking right up where Foiled (2010) left off (though with enough back story for new readers to comfortably jump in), Aliera Carstairs, the sassy, sword-fighting, take-no-prisoners heroine, is still battling trolls as the last Defender of Faerie. Avery Castle, the hottie who turned out to be a troll—literally—is now bound to Aliera as her vassal, causing her more headaches than heart flutters. The unlikely pair must find and battle the Dark Lord, whose identity, when revealed, isn't quite the shocking twist it was set up to be. Cavallaro keeps the stylized sensibility he established in the previous volume, rendering our world a washed-out grayscale landscape and juxtaposing it against the vibrant—though invisible to humans—world of Faerie. Given that each chapter is named for a type of fencing move, it’s too bad there is no glossary to help those unacquainted with the sport understand what is undoubtedly a careful authorial nuance. This minor flaw aside, the book offers a lot of fast-paced fairy-tale fun, and Aliera is both admirable and easy to relate to for her fierceness and foibles.
A mysterious prophecy of things to come at the conclusion results in raised eyebrows and impatience for Volume 3. (Graphic fantasy. 12 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59643-619-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: First Second/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
Unequivocally hilarious and delightful.
Valentine’s Day is the new Groundhog Day in Painter’s latest teen romance.
According to Emilie Hornby, “love is for planners,” and she is confident that Josh is the perfect boyfriend: He is well liked, academically gifted, and extremely handsome. So after dating him for three months, she adds “Say ‘I love you’ to Josh!!!!!!!!!!!” to her Valentine’s Day to-do list. But Fate has other plans for Emilie, and she ends up crashing her car into her surly chemistry lab partner Nick’s truck, losing a journalism fellowship due to a clerical error, and catching Josh kissing his beautiful ex in his car. After sleeping over at her grandma’s, Emilie wakes up in her own bedroom and discovers that it is Feb. 14 again. Trapped in a time loop where she repeatedly relives the day’s heartbreaking events, she tries to manipulate things in order to free herself. But tomorrow never seems to come, and she keeps finding her way back to Nick, who is not only annoyingly handsome, but surprisingly charming. Painter plucks readers’ every heartstring, from writing a sweet love story between two teens with very different views on romance to honestly depicting how Emilie’s parents’ messy divorce has impacted her feelings of self-worth. Italicized confessions at the beginnings of various chapters prove there is a playful side to Emilie that is further brought out by Nick, whose constant teasing leads to flirty banter. Main characters are cued as White.
Unequivocally hilarious and delightful. (Romance. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7886-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
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