A promising premise marred by heavy-handed execution.
A reality show turns deadly as young people scramble to escape a nightmare town.
Having survived a mass shooting one year ago, Mercy Gray is tougher than the bullet fragment that’s still lodged in her back. She plans to use that grit to win one of the $100,000 prizes offered by eccentric tech billionaire Damien Dare, who’s determined to test his theories about what makes someone a survivor. Mercy and seven other contestants, all between 18 and 20, arrive in Landry’s Gap, a deserted wilderness town Dare bought specifically for the TV show, Who Survives. Each bears scars from a trauma that still haunts them. The rules are simple—complete a series of challenges; everyone who makes it to the end wins the cash. But when the first contestant turns up dead, the remaining players—the only people in the town—are left wondering who can be trusted. Marshall’s fans will appreciate that in Mercy she serves up another one of her signature stoic, slightly awkward girl protagonists who manage to be both resilient and fragile. The narrative tackles misogyny with mixed success; one character’s backstory feels realistically insightful, while another plotline comes across as forced. Mercy’s inner voice, as she wrestles with self-doubt, feels inconsistent. Disappointingly, the major plot twist is so obvious that even readers with little experience of the genre may anticipate the ending. Mercy is white, and there’s diversity in race and gender identity in the supporting cast.
A promising premise marred by heavy-handed execution. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9780593691830
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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