Still, there’s plenty here to make for a terrific weekend-afternoon read.
When given the choice to “[s]ave the world, or save the girl,” a young man named Ander, scion of a mystical race of beings with power over water, chooses the girl.
Seventeen-year-old Eureka Boudreaux has no idea how or why she survived the car crash that claimed her mother’s life, and there have been plenty of times when she wished she hadn’t. Four months and one suicide attempt after the accident, Eureka struggles to adjust to life without her mother and to a world that is suddenly filled with mystery and danger—with Eureka, unwitting agent of an apocalypse Ander’s people are trying to prevent, at the center of it all. Kate’s lush, sensuous descriptions bring the Louisiana bayou to life as Eureka battles against extraordinary forces of nature, desperate to discover who and what she truly is and how she can save the people she loves. While the characters are rich and appealing, and there’s plenty of danger, romance and intrigue to entertain, readers may find themselves frustrated by how long it takes to learn the truth about Eureka’s powers. All of the ingredients are there, but the murkiness surrounding the mythical underpinnings of the novel keeps it from reaching its full potential.
Still, there’s plenty here to make for a terrific weekend-afternoon read. (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-385-74265-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Incredibly immersive and utterly unique.
On a train headed to boarding school, a girl suddenly finds herself in another world where time functions differently.
After the sudden death of her father, 16-year-old Margo’s depression swerves into rebellion. But as she’s returning to her Dublin boarding school, something miraculous happens. Suddenly she’s in a completely different train car, and someone’s sitting in her seat. Moon, as he’s called, is an itinerant salesman—and he decides to help Margo. Maybe this strange girl can help fund his way out of a life shortened by skipshock: the deadly toll that constant traveling between worlds takes on the body. Each world has a different number of hours in its days; the days in Northern worlds are shorter, causing accelerated aging, while Southern worlds have days that are nearly as long as Earth’s. Semper, the ruling world, is Southern, and they’ve outlawed traveling for anyone but salesmen. But Margo’s arrival from Earth—a sealed world no one was aware of—indicates that there must be a rupture, which sparks interest in a universe on the brink of a war. In this duology opener, Margo and Moon must try to stop tyrannical Semper. Their journey is one of rollicking adventure, ever-present danger, and simmering romance. Readers will burn through the pages as they traverse gorgeous, fully realized worlds replete with their own varied dramas. Margo reads white and Moon is a member of the nomadic Lunati, who are often treated with suspicion.
Incredibly immersive and utterly unique. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9781536228816
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
In the end, it’s just another violent dystopian series opener for all its yellow-brick veneer, but it’s a whole lot more fun...
When a cyclone deposits a 21st-century Kansas teen in Oz, she and readers discover there’ve been some changes made.
Dirt-poor “Salvation Amy” Gumm lives in a trailer park, effectively parenting her alcoholic mom (her dad ran off years ago), who seems to care more about her pet rat, Star, than her daughter. That doesn’t mean Amy is eager to be in Oz, particularly this Oz. Tyrannized by a megalomaniacal Dorothy and mined of its magic, it’s a dystopian distortion of the paradise Baum and MGM depicted. In short order, Amy breaks the wholly capricious laws and is thrown into a cell in the Emerald City with only Star for company. There, she’s visited first by the mysterious but sympathetic Pete and then by the witch Mombi, who breaks her out and takes her to the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked (among whom is the very hot Nox). Amy may well be the salvation of Oz—only someone from the Other Place can take Dorothy down. Paige has clearly had the time of her life with this reboot, taking a dystopian-romance template and laying it over Oz. Readers of Baum’s books will take special delight in seeing new twists on the old characters, and they will greet the surprise climactic turnabout with the smugness of insiders.
In the end, it’s just another violent dystopian series opener for all its yellow-brick veneer, but it’s a whole lot more fun than many of its ilk. (Dystopian fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-228067-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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