A funny supernatural tale with spooky scenes, sincere emotions, and a solidly satisfying ending.
Plans to study for the SAT go horribly wrong when they are interrupted by a golfer cult’s demon-summoning plot in this comic YA horror novel.
Bing and Ron Slaughter are identical twins and half of the Ephits, a punk band (formerly the Angry Red Welts). Bing is the frontman and songwriter, and Ron plays bass. They’ve got to do well on their SATs to get into good schools. Otherwise, it’s goodbye to their parents’ financial support and hello to careers at McDonald’s, where Mr. and Mrs. Slaughter work as operational planners. Maybe it’s not the best idea to study at a remote cabin in the woods the night before the SATs with the other Ephits, Prathamesh “Meat” Kimitri (drummer) and Kaitlyn Krimpsen (keyboard), but that’s the plan. Things soon go awry when a monster lightning storm strikes, cutting off the power, and the twins’ history teacher, Mr. Brom, pounds on the cabin door wielding a dagger—which has a mind of its own. Through its manipulations, the group dodges dangers, arriving at a golf-course clubhouse, but it’s no sanctuary. As Mr. Brom explains, “Insane cultists, Satan worshipers and evil wizards are like elderly nuns compared to the Golfers’ Association.” It’s up to the twins to save their friends from becoming blood sacrifices and prevent a powerful demon from being unleashed on the world. Hardison (Fish Wielder, 2016) writes an exciting tale with nonstop action, supernatural horror, and plenty of humor. Pop-culture references enliven the dialogue, as when Kaitlyn tearfully whispers, “The needs of the many” (from Star Trek II) to the band’s bus, demolished in getaway service. Hardison writes amusingly that his protagonists “had almost been killed, and they were experiencing cheap and melodramatic personal revelations,” but in fact the characters do come to new—and not at all cheap—understandings about their roles, relationships, and life paths, a great strength of the book. A nice twist at the end isn’t easy to see coming and works very well to tie things together.
A funny supernatural tale with spooky scenes, sincere emotions, and a solidly satisfying ending.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-946143-17-4
Page Count: -
Publisher: Fiery Seas
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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