An appealing debut for romance fans and readers willing to suspend disbelief.
For years, Leah has stolen out at night to the forest abutting her East Texas home to set out apples on a tree stump, then hide and watch three giant, hairy Bigfoot lumber out and consume her offering; this time, the visitors include a human boy.
Leah’s kept her trips secret from her dysfunctional, all-white family: authoritarian preacher dad, secret-tippler mom, and older brother Matt. Each has nursed corrosive secrets in the decade since Matt’s twin died in a horrific incident that also claimed the brother and father of Leah’s best friend, Ashley (all also white). Their losses are a forbidden topic. Why her parents then moved next to the forest puzzles Leah, banned from setting foot in it herself. Blonde Leah attracts romantic attention from Matt’s friend, but he’s no match for the enchanting, mysterious green-eyed, bronze-skinned forest boy who’s claimed Leah’s heart and is equally smitten. In secret encounters that include the smallest Sasquatch, their relationship deepens. Meanwhile, Leah’s parents head out nights, in camo hunting attire; excitement’s replaced their customary hostility. As convoluted paths converge, long-hidden truths are revealed. Related by Leah in the present tense, her discoveries—of the boy, the Sasquatch, and their forest world at night—are intense and authentic, resonating with heady excitement. More mundane plot developments and explanations tidy loose narrative threads but strain credulity. Paradoxically, the Tarzan-esque fantasy rings truest.
An appealing debut for romance fans and readers willing to suspend disbelief. (Romantic fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6351-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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