A slow-paced yet big-hearted satire.
In this comic fantasy, an aspiring writer accidentally creates a penguin-based religion, setting her at odds with her devout mother, a violent king, and the eccentric pantheon of gods her brainchild threatens to unseat.
On a mostly desert world where the sun no longer sets, a smattering of towns is ruled by a cruel, diseased king who plans to overthrow the Ageless, an immortal but largely absentee assemblage of deities. Since the death of her father in one of King Rulf’s many wars, Zeggara “Egg” East lives under the influence of her mother, the Holy Devoted Sarene, who wishes for her daughter to commit to worshiping the Ageless as she does. But Egg only wishes to be a writer. So Egg’s manuscript, Grand Teachings of the Almighty Penguin, is, naturally, a commentary on religion, where an eternal Penguin arrives in a village to teach the people how to be more “penguiny.” Much to her surprise, the story’s popularity births a new religion, Penguinism, and now a simple mother-daughter conflict threatens to hatch into a holy war. The timing couldn’t be worse for a religious crusade, as the leaders of the Ageless—the God of Creation and Goddess of Order—tell their family in a crystal heaven about their impending divorce and retirement. Equally worrisome, King Rulf has discovered the gods’ lethal seafood allergy, with only the God of Waste Management and the shameless yet sincere Jack-of-12-Trades named Trast to stop him. A fantasy comedy that swims in similarly madcap waters as works by Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore, Massa’s novel coolly and deftly introduces a farcical setting that reflects the absurdity of today’s world, brimming with commentary on religion, capitalism, and writing. The book likes to play with language and puns, and Egg’s journey pokes fun at writers, readers, publishers, and more, though its appeal reaches far beyond wordsmiths and satirists. Unfortunately, the tale’s pacing could most fittingly be described as a waddle, its length making clever ideas like the Ageless’ seafood allergy and the Penguinists’ evolving and eclectic religious practices eventually grow tiresome. The author restates plot elements and Egg’s odyssey to keep the story moving. This distracts somewhat from one of the tale’s most intriguing themes: that moments of real kindness and connection between characters come not from humor, but rather the unexpected sharing of tragedy.
A slow-paced yet big-hearted satire.Pub Date: May 16, 2022
ISBN: 979-8825594620
Page Count: 486
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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