An excellent supernatural tale with a unique premise and indelible characters.
Sutton’s (Gardenia, 2017, etc.) paranormal YA thriller sees a young woman trapped in an afterlife realm, trying to solve the mystery of her own death.
As the story opens, a young woman wakes in a dark, confined space. “Let me out!” she screams before falling into a dirty cavern. After orienting herself, she meets a handsome young man holding an unlit cigar who introduces himself as “no one,” adding that “We’re all no one.” She learns that he goes by the name Smoke; she soon meets another girl named Doll, after her one possession. The young woman has a key around her neck, so this becomes her name. It turns out that a small village of people live in “Under,” in homes fashioned from dirt. Nobody recalls their lives before they arrived there, but everyone maintains the markings (or coloration) that they had when they died; chillingly, Smoke has a slash across his throat. When a frightening man named Splinter accosts Key, Smoke saves her, and she goes on to befriend a girl named Ribbon as well as a man named Journal, from whom she borrows books. Yet how did books—and other objects, such as beds—come to be in Under? An even graver puzzle confronts Key when Splinter is found burned to a crisp. In this moody YA fantasy, Sutton offers a propulsive, multilayered mystery: How did her characters reach Under, and what’s the tangled nature of their relationships? There’s also a quiet sensuality to Key’s narration, as when she notices that, “Every line of [Smoke’s] body is elegant, and my fear is overpowered by admiration.” The plot slowly tiptoes forward as Key receives notes from an unknown scribe; one says, “Swim across the river,” which turns out to refer to a “river” of twisted tree roots. Sutton takes this dreamlike atmosphere a step further when Key begins to remember her former existence. More burned bodies appear, details of characters’ lives creep in, and pressure mounts for Key to stop the carnage. The superior pacing during the final third makes the ending hit like a slow-motion cannon blast.
An excellent supernatural tale with a unique premise and indelible characters.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-600-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A familiar but heartfelt romance for easygoing readers.
In O’Gorman’s YA debut, two best friends try to fool people into thinking that they’re in love—and then discover a new facet of their relationship.
Sally Spitz is a frizzy-haired 17-year-old girl with a charming zeal for three things: Harry Potter (she’s a Gryffindor), Star Wars, and getting into Duke University. During her senior year of high school, she goes on a slew of miserable dates, set up by her mother and her own second-best–friend–turned-matchmaker, Lillian Hooker. Sally refuses to admit to anyone that she’s actually head over Converses in love with her longtime best friend, a boy named Baldwin Eugene Charles Kent, aka “Becks.” After a particularly awkward date, Sally devises a plan to end Lillian’s matchmaking attempts; specifically, she plans to hire someone to act as her fake boyfriend, or “F.B.F.” But before Sally can put her plan into action, a rumor circulates that Sally and Becks are already dating. Becks agrees to act as Sally’s F.B.F. in exchange for a box of Goobers and Sally’s doing his calculus homework for a month. Later, as they hold hands in the hall and “practice” make-out sessions in Becks’ bedroom, their friendship heads into unfamiliar territory. Over the course of this novel, O’Gorman presents an inviting and enjoyable account of lifelong friendship transforming into young love. Though the author’s reliance on familiar tropes may be comforting to a casual reader, it may frustrate those who may be looking for a more substantial and less predictable plot. A number of ancillary characters lack very much complexity, and the story, overall, would have benefited from an added twist or two. Even so, however, this remains a largely engaging and often endearing debut.
A familiar but heartfelt romance for easygoing readers.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-759-7
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
