Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT

Next book

DIVIDED WORLDS

Another strong dose of supernatural drama, with a pleasantly diverse cast.

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT

In this second volume of a YA fantasy series, two heroines return to the Faery Realm to confront both personal and Court-threatening demons.

High school seniors Alexis Dearborn and Molly Connolly have recently returned from the Faery Realm. Alexis is now dating Keir, prince of the Dark Court, while Molly has broken up with Dax, an obsessive incubus. As Halloween rolls around, the girls attend a party at their friend Cassi’s house. Molly hopes to move past her previous abusive relationship by joining her biology classmate Dave at the party. But Dax won’t be forgotten. He starts leaving presents for Molly in intrusive ways, like pastries on her doorstep and a musical figurine in her room. He even accosts her in her dreams. Meanwhile, in the Faery Realm, the Solitaries—rogue fae who have renounced their Court affiliations and become feral—are a growing menace. The Courts plan to convene and decide how to handle the Solitaries, and Queen Tynan, Keir’s mother, has summoned Alexis to a private audience. Later, when Dax magically robs Dave of his personality, Molly is determined to face her emotionally manipulative ex-boyfriend and restore her classmate. Yet the girls may not be prepared for all the secrets they’re still to uncover in the Faery Realm. In this expansive sequel, Ridge (Between Worlds, 2017, etc.) delivers broader dangers and a more inclusive cast. She depicts the Solitaries as a horde of furred, scaled mutations. A more refined fright comes from those of the Unseelie Court, who dress in gothic flair and pierce themselves with iron jewelry. Most noteworthy is Ridge’s introduction of Lark, a nonbinary elf who uses them/their/they pronouns. Lark proves integral to the plot, which contrasts the elf with another character, who comes out of the closet only to stand on the sidelines. Ridge injects humor whenever possible, like Alexis’ Tinker Bell Halloween costume, balancing the severity of Molly and Dax’s storyline. His role as the controlling boyfriend is exceptionally rendered, effectively popping out of the fantasy backdrop. This second volume also successfully establishes a major villain to battle in the third installment.

Another strong dose of supernatural drama, with a pleasantly diverse cast.

Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-387-40321-9

Page Count: 356

Publisher: Lulu

Review Posted Online: March 29, 2018

Categories:

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 45


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2015


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    winner


  • National Book Award Finalist

Next book

A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 45


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2015


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    winner


  • National Book Award Finalist

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

Categories:
Next book

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:
Close Quickview