A gruesome take on the vampire story for gross-out horror fans only.
An investigative reporter and his friend close in on a father and daughter who hunt humans so she can have fresh blood to drink.
Eleven-year-old Amanda Chaffee is hungry. Since birth, she’s needed blood meals to survive. Why this is so or how her father (her mother having died in labor) was able to divine this from a nonverbal infant is frustratingly never explained. In any case, the birds, small animals and house pets that had satiated her no longer suffice. Since her eighth birthday, Amanda has been feeding on homeless victims killed by her father. Now, three years later, bodies of homeless men—throats cut, blood drained—are showing up in the East River, and investigative reporter Solomon Earl is determined to pursue the story, as he tells his friend Andrew Morton. Morton is more concerned with the pressure he faces from his girlfriend and her family to pop the question, but he gets involved after Earl, having been hit by a car when chasing the Chaffees, asks for help. As Morton pursues leads and Amanda is left on her own, things become increasingly grisly. Although Pepper has notable facility as a writer, his debut novel presents a world full of unlikable characters doing unlikely things. Seeing his quarries attacking an innocent homeless man, Earl rushes toward them but not with thoughts of rescue: “The beginnings of an erection. This story…and the possibility of national recognition sent blood rushing to his penis. He’d go home and masturbate if all went well.” Melodramatic overreactions add a ludicrous note. Upon learning his girlfriend is in imminent danger, for example, “Morton staggered backward in a drunken stupor, failing to set his legs under him….The walls, floor and ceiling…undulated before his very eyes. The ground crumbled and lurched, the earth shifting below him….He stood exposed without tethers over a deep crevice of blackness and despair.” Instead of calling 911, Morton takes a taxi from Manhattan to Tuckhoe, N.Y., in a snowstorm. Gratuitous scenes sometimes go beyond believability, as when Amanda manages to kill and drag home a department-store Santa, then pack him with snow in the bathtub. Despite this decent preservation technique, the next day, “[b]its and pieces of skin floated lazily to the surface….Dissolving strands of Santa’s hip wrapped around her wrist.” Also, the far-fetched conclusion remains unresolved and unsatisfying.
A gruesome take on the vampire story for gross-out horror fans only.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 406
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.
A fifth-grade New Orleans girl discovers a mysterious chrysalis containing an unexpected creature in this middle-grade novel.
Jacquelyn Marie Johnson, called Jackie, is a 10-year-old African-American girl, the second oldest and the only girl of six siblings. She’s responsible, smart, and enjoys being in charge; she likes “paper dolls and long division and imagining things she had never seen.” Normally, Jackie has no trouble obeying her strict but loving parents. But when her potted snapdragon acquires a peculiar egg or maybe a chrysalis (she dubs it a chrysalegg), Jackie’s strong desire to protect it runs up against her mother’s rule against plants in the house. Jackie doesn’t exactly mean to lie, but she tells her mother she needs to keep the snapdragon in her room for a science project and gets permission. Jackie draws the chrysalegg daily, waiting for something to happen as it gets larger. When the amazing creature inside breaks free, Jackie is more determined than ever to protect it, but this leads her further into secrets and lies. The results when her parents find out are painful, and resolving the problem will take courage, honesty, and trust. Dumas (Jaden Toussaint, the Greatest: Episode 5, 2017, etc.) presents a very likable character in Jackie. At 10, she’s young enough to enjoy playing with paper dolls but has a maturity that even older kids can lack. She’s resourceful, as when she wants to measure a red spot on the chrysalegg; lacking calipers, she fashions one from her hairpin. Jackie’s inward struggle about what to obey—her dearest wishes or the parents she loves—is one many readers will understand. The book complicates this question by making Jackie’s parents, especially her mother, strict (as one might expect to keep order in a large family) but undeniably loving and protective as well—it’s not just a question of outwitting clueless adults. Jackie’s feelings about the creature (tender and responsible but also more than a little obsessive) are similarly shaded rather than black-and-white. The ending suggests that an intriguing sequel is to come.
In more ways than one, a tale about young creatures testing their wings; a moving, entertaining winner.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943169-32-0
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Plum Street Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.
In the ninth book in the Bluford young-adult series, a young Latino man walks away from violence—but at great personal cost.
In a large Southern California city, 16-year-old Martin Luna hangs out on the fringes of gang life. He’s disaffected, fatherless and increasingly drawn into the orbit of the older, rougher Frankie. When a stray bullet kills Martin’s adored 8-year-old brother, Huero, Martin seems to be heading into a life of crime. But Martin’s mother, determined not to lose another son, moves him to another neighborhood—the fictional town of Bluford, where he attends the racially diverse Bluford High. At his new school, the still-grieving Martin quickly makes enemies and gets into trouble. But he also makes friends with a kind English teacher and catches the eye of Vicky, a smart, pretty and outgoing Bluford student. Martin’s first-person narration supplies much of the book’s power. His dialogue is plain, but realistic and believable, and the authors wisely avoid the temptation to lard his speech with dated and potentially embarrassing slang. The author draws a vivid and affecting picture of Martin’s pain and confusion, bringing a tight-lipped teenager to life. In fact, Martin’s character is so well drawn that when he realizes the truth about his friend Frankie, readers won’t feel as if they are watching an after-school special, but as though they are observing the natural progression of Martin’s personal growth. This short novel appears to be aimed at urban teens who don’t often see their neighborhoods portrayed in young-adult fiction, but its sophisticated characters and affecting story will likely have much wider appeal.
A YA novel that treats its subject and its readers with respect while delivering an engaging story.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 978-1591940173
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Townsend Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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