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
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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