Elevates the dystopian genre with snappy writing, well-drawn characters, intriguing back story, and bracing battles.
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a woman with special powers and a small band of underground survivors take on a cruel warlord.
Some time after worldwide catastrophic events, few people live past the age of 40. An illness called Cling can be cured only with Clear, a rare substance that’s best found with the help of a “martyr,” a person who can also read minds—like Sadie, 35. She keeps her gift hidden and uses it sparingly (it can sicken or kill), which helps her win card games to buy fuel and avoid warlords such as Gen. Gash. That’s the world aboveground; underground are “moles,” descendants of the first survivors. Polymath Rafael “Rafa” Carrera Allende, 20, lives in one such community, an enlightened bastion. Locating a supply of Clear is crucial, so when the community’s expedition crosses paths with Sadie (deathly ill after overusing her gift), she seems like the answer to its problems. Complicating matters is a tunnel recently discovered that leads from the community to a spot beneath Gash’s lair. There’s also an undeclared war between Gash and Vidar, an arms dealer who employs bounty hunter Finn, who is also Sadie’s ex. They still have a connection, even if she won’t admit it. Finn, Vidar, the community, and Sadie have all the ingredients for a knockdown battle that could end Gash once and for all, free his slaves, obtain Clear, and keep civilization going. Though post-apocalyptic novels set in a Mad Max–like landscape aren’t new, Menapace (Side Effects, 2016, etc.) and debut author Bravo make their hard-bitten world come alive with telling moments, such as a border-town tavern that offers “bowls of what was billed to be cricket mush, but that Sadie knew was roach.” In such a tale, Rafa’s community could easily be made to seem weak and namby-pamby, but the authors intelligently show the hard work, care, and tough-mindedness it takes to keep civilization going. At the same time, the good guys deliver very satisfying beat downs to the baddies in scenes of rousing, cinematic action.
Elevates the dystopian genre with snappy writing, well-drawn characters, intriguing back story, and bracing battles.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9888433-7-0
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Mind Mess Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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