An also-ran in the genre; for a far more nuanced, philosophical examination of life and death, readers interested in reaping...
A white teenage girl discovers she must reap souls after she dies.
Rosie Wolfe is 15 when she is fatally struck by a truck. She wakes up in a purgatorial hospital where she is informed that she must reap three souls before she is allowed to move on to paradise to join her father. After a makeover and some classes on how to collect souls, Rosie is sent back to live with Martha, a white reaper mentor. Rosie quickly breaks several reaper rules by crushing on a neighborhood Latino boy and trying to find her mother. She successfully reaps two adult souls but is conflicted about the third, a young girl that has been assigned to Rosie as punishment for her defiance. Will Rosie be able to finish the job? Some readers may cease to care due to the weak worldbuilding, in which the afterlife is stereotypically rendered as a nondescript hospital or office building, and the thinly drawn characters, who are mostly defined by their skin and hair color. Convenient coincidences (Martha was also Rosie’s father’s mentor; Rosie eats in a diner where her old best friend is now a waitress) further diminish an already prosaic plot.
An also-ran in the genre; for a far more nuanced, philosophical examination of life and death, readers interested in reaping should consider Neal Shusterman’s erudite Scythe (2016) instead. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7196-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
Sanderson (Legion, 2018, etc.) plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too.
Eager to prove herself, the daughter of a flier disgraced for cowardice hurls herself into fighter pilot training to join a losing war against aliens.
Plainly modeled as a cross between Katniss Everdeen and Conan the Barbarian (“I bathed in fires of destruction and reveled in the screams of the defeated. I didn’t get afraid”), Spensa “Spin” Nightshade leaves her previous occupation—spearing rats in the caverns of the colony planet Detritus for her widowed mother’s food stand—to wangle a coveted spot in the Defiant Defense Force’s flight school. Opportunities to exercise wild recklessness and growing skill begin at once, as the class is soon in the air, battling the mysterious Krell raiders who have driven people underground. Spensa, who is assumed white, interacts with reasonably diverse human classmates with varying ethnic markers. M-Bot, a damaged AI of unknown origin, develops into a comical sidekick: “Hello!...You have nearly died, and so I will say something to distract you from the serious, mind-numbing implications of your own mortality! I hate your shoes.” Meanwhile, hints that all is not as it seems, either with the official story about her father or the whole Krell war in general, lead to startling revelations and stakes-raising implications by the end. Stay tuned. Maps and illustrations not seen.
Sanderson (Legion, 2018, etc.) plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too. (Science fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-55577-0
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
SEEN & HEARD
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