by John Dixon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 2014
A fast-paced, exciting novel with the promise of future installments.
This action-packed novel (with YA crossover appeal) combines adventure with extreme violence and concerns a young boxer sent to a very special youth boot camp.
Carl Freeman has never been able to stand by and watch while someone is bullied, and that’s become a problem for him. An up-and-coming boxer who won a national championship, Carl can’t force himself to walk away whenever a kid’s being bullied. As a result, the orphaned son of a police officer and a cancer victim has found himself in and out of the juvenile justice system. Now, at age 16, Carl has been sent to a place off the coast of Mexico called Phoenix Island, where he meets the beautiful Octavia and Ross, a kid who can’t seem to stop himself from telling jokes, even if that leads to severe punishment. And there’s plenty of punishment to go around at Phoenix Island, purportedly a boot camp for troubled kids. Only thing is, every kid on the island turns out to be an orphan, and all of those orphans seem to be expendable, or at least that’s what Carl suspects when he finds a journal kept by a previous inhabitant of Phoenix. Forced marches, food deprivation and nonstop training don’t bother Carl, but he has an issue with the viciousness that one particular drill sergeant evinces. When things come to a head, Carl finds that all of his suspicions about the island prove even worse than he thought in this crisply written and imaginative effort. Dixon’s page-turner will keep readers of all ages enthralled.
A fast-paced, exciting novel with the promise of future installments.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3863-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
Share your opinion of this book
More by John Dixon
BOOK REVIEW
by John Dixon
by Walter Dean Myers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 1999
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Share your opinion of this book
More by Walter Dean Myers
BOOK REVIEW
by Walter Dean Myers ; illustrated by Floyd Cooper
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Walter Dean Myers ; adapted by Guy A. Sims ; illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile
by Kelly Garrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2017
Garrett’s failure to produce any sympathetic characters makes her debut tough going.
Burglaries turn deadly for a group of spoiled teenagers.
Harper, Alex, Sarah, Paisley, Benji, and Gin come from similarly privileged homes. Their parents make up for a lack of commitment to their high school offspring by providing unfettered access to life’s material benefits: cars, clothes, and costly vacations. When getting drunk on booze filched from their folks’ well-stocked liquor cabinets palls, they invent an exciting new game. Each time one of the teens’ families goes skiing in Vail or snorkeling in the Bahamas, a designated member of the pack breaks into the unattended house and collects an assortment of trophies to be pawned for ready cash. The rules of the looting are strict. Only one member breaks into each house, nothing is to be stolen that can’t be replaced with insurance money, and nothing stolen from other members of the group. Harper adds one more rule: no stealing from her deaf sister, Maggie. After one full round of felonious fun, the wheels start to come off the crime spree. Sarah dies from a drug overdose. The police can’t decide if it’s an accident or suicide, but Harper is sure it’s neither. She thinks Sarah is too smart to overdose on her own and too conceited to kill herself. And since no one outside her little group exists for Harper, one of her fellow thieves must have killed her. Going to the authorities is a no-go because it would reveal the group’s role in the burglaries and spoil their chances of admission to an Ivy League college. So Harper and her chums sit around and wait to see if anything else bad happens. It does. Unfortunately, even Harper’s protectiveness toward her sister carries its own whiff of smugness.
Garrett’s failure to produce any sympathetic characters makes her debut tough going.Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-929345-30-4
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.