A high school student in modern-day Japan must defeat vengeful mountain demons using powers he never knew he had in this uproariously offbeat debut novel.
Koda Okita is not a typical 15-year-old Japanese high school student. The son of aging shiitake farmers, he dreams of being a pilot despite suffering from narcolepsy, a condition that requires him to wear a watermelon-sized helmet while riding his bike. Koda lives in the small island town of Kusaka, situated in the middle of nowhere between two mountain ranges. The isolated setting heightens the tension that builds as students and faculty of Kusaka High School begin to die in a series of apparent suicides under inexplicable circumstances. Their deaths coincide with the appearance of Moya, a mysterious new girl who is convinced that Koda holds the key to unraveling the tragic events unfolding in Kusaka. As Koda gradually realizes that his narcoleptic episodes are actually supernatural experiences that allow him to "steal" the traumatic memories of others, he takes this knowledge in stride, along with the existence of tengu, the supernatural creatures who are the culprits behind the town's misfortunes. Romney's tale of modern-day Japan crossed with Japanese folklore is suffused with abundant humor, as his wisecracking teens navigate situations fraught with dark and dramatic irony.
A confident debut that is at once ominous and laugh-out-loud funny. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-31654-9
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
This story is necessary. This story is important.
23
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Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is a black girl and an expert at navigating the two worlds she exists in: one at Garden Heights, her black neighborhood, and the other at Williamson Prep, her suburban, mostly white high school.
Walking the line between the two becomes immensely harder when Starr is present at the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Khalil, by a white police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Khalil’s death becomes national news, where he’s called a thug and possible drug dealer and gangbanger. His death becomes justified in the eyes of many, including one of Starr’s best friends at school. The police’s lackadaisical attitude sparks anger and then protests in the community, turning it into a war zone. Questions remain about what happened in the moments leading to Khalil’s death, and the only witness is Starr, who must now decide what to say or do, if anything. Thomas cuts to the heart of the matter for Starr and for so many like her, laying bare the systemic racism that undergirds her world, and she does so honestly and inescapably, balancing heartbreak and humor. With smooth but powerful prose delivered in Starr’s natural, emphatic voice, finely nuanced characters, and intricate and realistic relationship dynamics, this novel will have readers rooting for Starr and opening their hearts to her friends and family.
This story is necessary. This story is important. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-249853-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A slightly abridged graphic version of the classic that will drive off all but the artist’s most inveterate fans.
Admirers of the original should be warned away by veteran horror artist Bernie Wrightson’s introductory comments about Grimly’s “wonderfully sly stylization” and the “twinkle” in his artistic eye. Most general readers will founder on the ensuing floods of tiny faux handwritten script that fill the opening 10 pages of stage-setting correspondence (other lengthy letters throughout are presented in similarly hard-to-read typefaces). The few who reach Victor Frankenstein’s narrative will find it—lightly pruned and, in places, translated into sequences of largely wordless panels—in blocks of varied length interspersed amid sheaves of cramped illustrations with, overall, a sickly, greenish-yellow cast. The latter feature spidery, often skeletal figures that barrel over rough landscapes in rococo, steampunk-style vehicles when not assuming melodramatic poses. Though the rarely seen monster is a properly hard-to-resolve jumble of massive rage and lank hair, Dr. Frankenstein looks like a decayed Lyle Lovett with high cheekbones and an errant, outsized quiff. His doomed bride, Elizabeth, sports a white lock à la Elsa Lanchester, and decorative grotesqueries range from arrangements of bones and skull-faced flowers to bunnies and clownish caricatures.
Grimly plainly worked hard, but, as the title indicates, the result serves his own artistic vision more than Mary Shelley’s. (Graphic classic. 14 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-186297-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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