A potentially compelling historical fantasy that sadly squanders its sense of place.
Russell’s (Death of an H.O.E., 2013, etc.) YA fantasy novel, the first in a planned series, sends three middle schoolers on a quest through time to prevent a dark bargain that’s been centuries in the making.
When her mother and stepfather leave the country, seventh-grader November Atwood is sent to Danvers, Massachusetts, to live with her late father’s sisters and her 12-year-old twin cousins, Jeffrey and Stephen Atwood; the latter is nicknamed “Hawk” after the scientist Stephen Hawking, with whom he shares both a love of quantum physics and the use of a wheelchair. Near the abandoned State Asylum, the three tweens dig up an old wooden box; it contains a cryptic document, dated “In the second year of the reign of our Sovereign King William III,” or 1700. It includes the mysterious instruction to “Go beneath the stones of Hathorne / On The Eve of Hollandtide.” As they puzzle over what this statement could mean, they’re startled by the sudden appearance of November’s supposedly imaginary friend, Dynnis, who explains that the three Atwood children are part of a line of magic users destined to break the Bargain, a more than 300-year-old blood oath that will otherwise doom their town. But can they overcome the ancient evil of the demon called Astaroth, and save their family’s past and future? Russell’s exciting premise promises to connect the well-known story of the Salem witches with the history of the real-life Danvers State Hospital. Unfortunately, the details of these local legends are soon replaced by a standard tale of good vs. evil, and the use of Celtic lore seems irrelevant to the setting. This aspect is particularly disappointing because Russell’s writing is often vivid, incorporating not just visuals but sound and even scent: “it stunk of mildew, rotted plaster, and wood, but there was something more. This smell was almost sweet—like stale gingerbread.” It’s worth noting, though, that November’s narration is frequently ableist until late in the novel: “Up until now I’d done a pretty good job avoiding anyone in a wheelchair. I didn’t even make eye contact with them in public places.”
A potentially compelling historical fantasy that sadly squanders its sense of place.Pub Date: May 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4401-1900-2
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Tiny Cottage Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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