Readers passionate about the series might like it, but those on the fence about continuing should pass.
In this trilogy conclusion, the veil between life and death is so weak ghosts walk the streets, and only the heroes can stop it from falling away completely.
Starting after the end of Blackwatch (2012), this installment begins with amnesiac Kate Winters under Dalliah Grey’s mind control and believing that they are student and teacher. Dalliah treats her more like a quasi-prisoner, so it’s no surprise that all it takes is a glimpse at Silas (and the tug of their connection) to shatter the ruse. Silas and tag-along Edgar then spend the story separated from Kate, simultaneously trying to find a way to stop Dalliah’s plans, preparing the citizens of Fume for a worst-case scenario in which Dalliah’s plans work and bracing for an imminent invasion by the Continent’s army. Meanwhile Kate, though free of Dalliah’s mind control, still obeys her, as Dalliah is too strong for Kate to fight, and she aids in Dalliah’s quest to destroy three critical spirit wheels to remove the veil. The protagonists find it exceptionally easy to convince others to follow commands, as plot requirements too-obviously dictate character actions. The plot moves at a good clip and explores the horrors of past experiments with the veils, but the sacrifice of character to its advancement represents a fatal flaw.
Readers passionate about the series might like it, but those on the fence about continuing should pass. (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-202646-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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