Thoughtful and exciting, with wonderfully imagined characters.
A teenage girl with powerful abilities aids imprisoned gods and helps defend a village from evil scientists in this concluding installment of a trilogy.
Celeste Araia Nolan, about 14, is a survivor of The Event, a cataclysmic disaster that swallowed up her parents and led to many strange, fluxing transformations of people and animals. Everyone has copper skin; some creatures meld together, like Lou and Layla—a “spectacular fusion of peacock and horse.” In Books I and II, Celeste discovered she could fly, rescued a village of children, trapped two feuding gods, discovered the lair of insane scientists who caused The Event, and helped release Zoya, a giant octopus held captive by the scientists, from agony. “I’m more than just a girl. I’ve done things,” says Celeste. Now, with one member of her lost family restored, Celeste has a new mission: Release the gods from their prisons to restore the planet’s balance, bring two kidnapped children home, and defend her village from the villainous scientists, who are building an army of invasion. Meanwhile, Celeste is enjoying her mutual attraction with Nick, who stirs new feelings and makes her feel beautiful. With help from allies like Old Man Massive, a sentient mountain, Celeste discovers more about her powers and faces her greatest challenge yet—one that will change her forever. McHargue (Waterwight Flux, 2017, etc.) packs a lot into this fast-moving final volume. While backstory is well-integrated into the narrative, this isn’t a stand-alone novel. That said, in many ways this outing, with its clearly stated quest and thrilling showdown, is easier to follow than the first two. The trilogy’s side characters, often so bizarre due to the flux, are now more familiar and often possess a rare individual charm—such as Orville, an “emerald-winged man,” who has also been a French-speaking windup frog. Celeste’s young romance helps balance her superpowers; as she says, “I may not be just a girl, but I’m still a girl.” Among so many cookie-cutter YA fantasies, McHargue’s originality is a pleasure to encounter.
Thoughtful and exciting, with wonderfully imagined characters.Pub Date: March 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9969711-3-3
Page Count: 213
Publisher: Strack Press LLC
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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