A creative and surprising mixture of upbeat and macabre makes for an engaging read.
A goth girl in New Mexico grapples with death—and what comes after it.
Death-obsessed Olive lives in a town known for dark tourism thanks to its history of a tuberculosis sanitarium that drew in Hollywood celebrities and other elites and which was built by the Seymour family on stolen Navajo land, compounding its morbid legacy. Olive has been terrified ever since her shellfish allergy caused a near-death experience: “instead of going to Heaven, I was alone in the Nothing.” She’s distanced herself from others, including her parents and best friend, Davis. Seeking answers about the afterlife, Olive decides to ask a ghost and summons Jay, who experienced atrocities at the sinister Seymour House Asylum for the Poor, a nightmarish institution “full of forgotten people.” Jay is at risk of becoming a shade, and Olive must help him find his grave so he can move on. In the process, she hopes to learn the answer to her enduring question, “where do you go after you die?” The book maintains levity through its pleasantly gothic energy, which will appeal to earnest believers in the paranormal and those in the throes of mortality-related existential crises alike. Davis is Diné; Olive, Jay, and the Seymours are white. This morbid tale that’s just as playful as it is unsettling explores race and cultural legacies in the context of New Mexico’s historical and contemporary politics of development.
A creative and surprising mixture of upbeat and macabre makes for an engaging read. (Supernatural horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781635830910
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A gripping tribute to resilience.
A girl with amnesia and a boy suspected of harming his girlfriend overcome adversity to find the answers they seek.
A 17-year-old girl wakes up in a ditch, disoriented and with no memory of who she is or what happened. Found by the Alton, Oregon, police, she is brought to the station. Soon after, Wayne Boone, a man claiming to be her father, shows up. He has photos of her on his phone and her high school ID card, with the name Mary Boone. Wayne convinces the police to release Mary into his custody. The more time Mary spends with Wayne, however, the weirder things get: He’s unaware of her food allergy, and as her memories start to return, they don’t conform with Wayne’s versions of her life. In the town of Washington City, across the Willamette River, Drew is in a bad place. His girlfriend, Lola, has disappeared, and Drew was the last person to see her. His adoptive dads and cousin are the only ones who support him; everyone else, including the sheriff, thinks he’s responsible for Lola’s disappearance. Intent on finding Lola, Drew finds help in an unlikely ally, Lola’s best friend, Autumn, who is the sheriff’s daughter. But will they find Lola in time? The two immersive storylines bring to life the trials and frustrations each main character faces in this debut, which is a thrilling delight right up to the unexpected and bittersweet conclusion. Most characters are cued white; one of Drew’s dads is Guatemalan.
A gripping tribute to resilience. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728270111
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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