by Lee W. Collins ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2023
This enthralling exploit is built on humanity, not magic.
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A plucky tween heroine must protect her loved ones and exotic wild creatures in Collins’ young-adult thriller.
Etta isn’t your average tween girl: Like her grandparents, Etta can communicate telepathically with animals (“She could direct messages to an animal using just thought, what she called her ‘inside voice.’ The animal would reply, and Etta could ‘hear’ the animal’s voice inside her head”). Not surprisingly, that talent comes in handy in this second volume of author Collins’ Etta the Brave series. In this outing, Etta and her extended family travel to a desert town in Nevada to the wedding of Joy Morrison and Albert Gomez, who rescued Etta’s grandfather in the series’ first book. At the wedding, Etta makes a new friend: Albert’s niece, E. J. The next day, E. J. and her older brother, Cole, lead Etta, her mother, her younger cousin, Jules, and her aunt, Anne, on a horseback ride to Noah Gorge, where the wild mustangs roam. That’s also where their troubles begin; the party witnesses a helicopter herding horses and comes under fire. Etta and Jules are separated from the rest, who are captured by three ATV-riding armed rustlers. Etta and Jules, who, Etta discovers, also can talk to animals, must evade capture while making their way back for help, and gain some much-needed animal allies along the way. Etta’s adventure proves to be more than a little predictable—a writer doesn’t give a character a superpower if they don’t plan to employ it. But it’s how Etta gets to that point that makes this book so enjoyable. What’s intriguing about the cousins’ power is their inability to control the animals; they can only suggest that the creatures do something. Collins introduces more and more characters as the story approaches its denouement, skillfully keeping them from tripping over each other. The characters’ collective shrug after the climax strains credulity, yet that can be forgiven when set against the colorful backdrop of Etta’s engrossing journey.
This enthralling exploit is built on humanity, not magic.Pub Date: May 22, 2023
ISBN: 9798388406934
Page Count: 277
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Jeneva Rose ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 30, 2024
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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by Jeneva Rose
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