A young journeyman stonecutter becomes entangled in a web of emotions he cannot begin to navigate when he accepts a job from a mysterious man in this rather pointless gothic meditation set in 1835. Fourteen-year-old Albion Straight has reservations when a stranger’s agent approaches him to carve a monument, but lured by both the fee offered and the opportunity to make his professional name, he agrees. Hidden in the undeveloped wilderness of western New York’s Genesee River Valley, John Good’s mansion-in-the-making has attached to it a company of workers who seem to labor as virtual slaves to the autocratic Good. It turns out that Albion has been brought to Goodspell to carve a tomb for Good’s wife, 15 years dead, in a natural limestone cave that gives Albion the willies. Moreover, he is expected to use as model Good’s daughter Michal, who is the very image of her mother and whose birth precipitated her mother’s death. Told in the form of Albion’s diary entries, the narrative takes on the labored cadence of swollen Victorian language: “The strange illumination made them both ghastly, red-faced, and quaking in the lantern’s light. Tho they’d ceased speaking, it seemed that the echoes of their quarrel still flitted like bats around the great chamber. A crazed light shone in Michal’s eyes.” The relationship Albion glimpses between Good and Michal is indeed disturbing, but frustratingly, it is not explored enough within the narrative to make it other than vaguely creepy. Although both Michal’s and Albion’s distress at their powerlessness in the face of Good’s obsession is obvious to the reader, the climax and dénouement that result seem hastily thrown-together after the many pages of careful exposition that has gone before. In the end, there’s lots of atmosphere, but little story here. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-16474-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
Tales that “lay out your options for painful and interesting ways to die.” And to live.
In a similarly hefty companion to Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods (2014), the most voluble of Poseidon’s many sons dishes on a dozen more ancient relatives and fellow demigods.
Riordan averts his young yarn spinner’s eyes from the sex but not the stupidity, violence, malice, or bad choices that drive so many of the old tales. He leavens full, refreshingly tart accounts of the ups and downs of such higher-profile heroes as Theseus, Orpheus, Hercules, and Jason with the lesser-known but often equally awesome exploits of such butt-kicking ladies as Atalanta, Otrera (the first Amazon), and lion-wrestling Cyrene. In thought-provoking contrast, Psyche comes off as no less heroic, even though her story is less about general slaughter than the tough “Iron Housewives quests” Aphrodite forces her to undertake to rescue her beloved Eros. Furthermore, along with snarky chapter heads (“Phaethon Fails Driver’s Ed”), the contemporary labor includes references to Jay-Z, Apple Maps, god-to-god texting, and the like—not to mention the way the narrator makes fun of hard-to-pronounce names and points up such character flaws as ADHD (Theseus) and anger management issues (Hercules). The breezy treatment effectively blows off at least some of the dust obscuring the timeless themes in each hero’s career. In Rocco’s melodramatically murky illustrations, men and women alike display rippling thews and plenty of skin as they battle ravening monsters.
Tales that “lay out your options for painful and interesting ways to die.” And to live. (maps, index) (Mythology. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8365-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
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