A gruesome, superficial subterranean tale of redemption.
Who is Grant Franklin Tavish V? “A murderer.”
The son of a Virginia senator, Grant’s life is mapped out to the smallest detail: his affluent community, his friends, his girlfriend. And thanks to his father’s connections, Grant can walk away scot-free from the fatal car accident he caused. The guilt, however, proves too much. When Grant sets off on a caving excursion—a tradition that all Tavish men undergo before high school graduation—he plans to take his own life as a form of recompense. Except that a cave collapse traps him underground along with four other teens. Now the group must explore the cave system together in order to escape its hellish embrace while also evading something sinister lurking in its shadows. Situating readers squarely within Grant’s anguished point of view, Liggett (Heart of Ash, 2018, etc.) builds up Grant’s stifling, privileged life. The other teen characters represent the less fortunate, a group plagued by poverty, bad home lives, and other stereotypes. Unfortunately, Grant’s cave companions offer little beyond a single purpose: to feed into his self-development. Still, the author excels at weaving a tightly-packed narrative. As the teens struggle to find a way out, bonding during the ordeal, the cave starts claiming its victims. The story soon reaches its predictable, but somewhat satisfying, finale. One character is implied Latina; otherwise a white default is assumed.
A gruesome, superficial subterranean tale of redemption. (Thriller. 12-18)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7653-8100-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Truly fantastic.
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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