A fun adventure that skillfully blends magic, friendship, and teenage angst.
In Wyss’ YA fantasy series-starter, a high schooler finds her life turned upside down when she finds out she has superpowers and visits a magical world that she never knew existed.
When the teenage Vivian Carmine accidentally sets fire to her school’s gym during the annual science fair, her parents are forced to reveal some secrets to her: namely, that they are spies and she has fire-generating powers. Before she can learn more, her parents disappear and she’s whisked away by a boy named Samael—whose own powers and motives are murky—to a place where satyrs, fairies, and other magical creatures thrive. Adonis, head of an academy for mythical beings known as Regulation for the Integration of the Special and Extraordinary (RISE), explains that Vivian is a Phoenix—and the only known child “to come from fire-born Phoenix parents.” Although Vivian embraces the chance to learn more about this new world, she begins to suspect that RISE is more of a prison than a school—and that Adonis hasn’t been entirely honest with her. In the midst of a brewing war between gods and humans, Vivian embarks on a desperate mission to the depths of the Underworld to find her parents. Luckily, she has newfound friends, magical and otherwise, who are there to help. Wyss has crafted an immersive world that expertly combines fantasy, children’s literature (the Cheshire Cat makes an appearance), and Greek mythology (Samael’s parents turn out to be well-known figures) alongside the more realistic challenges of being a teenager. Vivian’s trials act as a metaphor for growing up in a way that’s resonant without feeling preachy: “By the very nature of us believing wholeheartedly in something, we bring it into creation,” says one character. “Be it a god, a monster, or an imaginary friend.” Crisp prose and a brisk plot keep things moving along, even as Vivian untangles increasingly complex relationships with her parents, Samael, and others. The end result is a fresh, fantastical take on a coming-of-age tale.
A fun adventure that skillfully blends magic, friendship, and teenage angst.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781960479075
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Carnelian & Quills
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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