A unique psychic adventure full of 1980s teen tropes.
In this debut YA urban-fantasy novel, a teenage girl begins astral-projecting in her sleep.
In October 1989, 17-year-old Alyssa Peña lives in Dana Point, California. Before waking one day, she has an intense, lucid dream that involves “mentally participating” in its events rather than simply viewing them. Although her classmate, Cathy Rojas, is skeptical of her claims, Alyssa begins writing a dream journal and creates a “mental Check List of self-awareness” to help her acknowledge instances of lucid dreaming. When she tells her best friend, Brian McHale, about her experiences, he says that she’s using the “Astral Plane,” a vast realm visited by people with formidable psychic power. One night, Alyssa and some friends have a party in the San Clemente hills. There, they encounter a group of people wearing hooded robes, seemingly about to sacrifice a black cat. As Alyssa and her friends move to save the animal, it leads to a fight, during which a handsome young man in a leather jacket helps the students. To Alyssa, he says, “What’s up Dream Girl?” Later, she meets him in a lucid dream and learns that his name is Will; soon, he tells her that she’s a prodigy and starts guiding her through the Astral Plane. However, he’s also keeping a dark secret from her. In this urban-fantasy tale, Ruiz perfectly conjures teenage life in the late 1980s; Alyssa, for example, is obsessed with the music of the era—everything from Cyndi Lauper to Def Leppard—and says things like, “Screw regular dreams! They were for suckers!” which gives the often esoteric subject matter an accessible YA tone. Her dream adventures are varied and include a visit with her Vietnam veteran father and a battle against “Ego” creatures. Ruiz offers memoir-style slices of teen life with an elegiac flavor alongside the out-of-body action, and although the author does eventually reveal dedicated adversaries for Alyssa, they’re slow to appear. Overall, the novel is more effective as a period piece than as a straightforward fantasy.
A unique psychic adventure full of 1980s teen tropes.Pub Date: April 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5212-3937-7
Page Count: 538
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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