Ultimately, just as frustrating, underdeveloped, and problematic as the trope this novel tries to interrogate.
A Manic Pixie Dream Boy learns he’s more than just a label.
Riley is TropeTown’s second-ever Manic Pixie Dream Boy—a subset of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. After twice deviating from his script on a job, the Council assigns Riley to mandatory group therapy with a motley crew of Manic Pixie Dream Girls. There, he falls for Zelda, of the Geek Chic subtype, and finds an unanticipated group of friends. However, something’s not quite right in TropeTown, and Riley has to decide if he is willing to risk termination to learn the truth about TropeTown and protect the Manic Pixies. Underdeveloped worldbuilding and a general lack of subtlety leaves elements of characterization and plot unsatisfying. There is plenty of discussion about the concept of Manic Pixies, but any attempted critique is undermined by the continued centering of Riley, a male character who finds himself through the help of secondary women characters. Barely-veiled digs at John Green’s many Manic Pixies abound; a painfully self-conscious discussion arises between white characters exploring the similarities and differences between Manic Pixies and racist tropes like the Magical Negro as well as the benefits and detriments of tropes as representation. A few of the women characters have been in same-sex relationships, and characters default to white.
Ultimately, just as frustrating, underdeveloped, and problematic as the trope this novel tries to interrogate. (Speculative fiction/satire. 13-17)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-1259-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
A glossy repackaging of a jejune tale.
A reissue of the 2016 novel published as Consider.
Alexandra Lucas and her boyfriend, Dominick, are about to start their senior year of high school when 500 vertexes—each one a doorway-shaped “hole into the fabric of the universe”—appear across the world, accompanied by holographic messages communicating news of Earth’s impending doom. The only escape is a one-way trip through the portals to a parallel future Earth. As people leave through the vertexes and the extinction event draws nearer, the world becomes increasingly unfamiliar. A lot has changed in the past several years, including expectations of mental health depictions in young adult literature; Alex’s struggle with anxiety and reliance on Ativan, which she calls her “little white savior” while initially discounting therapy as an intervention, make for a trite after-school special–level treatment of a complex situation; a short stint of effective therapy does finally occur but is so limited in duration that it contributes to the oversimplification of the topic. Alex also has unresolved issues with her Gulf War veteran father (who possibly grapples with PTSD). The slow pace of the plot as it depicts a crumbling society, along with stilted writing and insubstantial secondary characterization, limits the appeal of such a small-scale, personal story. Characters are minimally described and largely racially ambiguous; Alex has golden skin and curly brown hair.
A glossy repackaging of a jejune tale. (Science fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-72826-839-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst.
When a calamitous drought overtakes southern California, a group of teens must struggle to keep their lives and their humanity in this father-son collaboration.
When the Tap-Out hits and the state’s entire water supply runs dry, 16-year-old Alyssa Morrow and her little brother, Garrett, ration their Gatorade and try to be optimistic. That is, until their parents disappear, leaving them completely alone. Their neighbor Kelton McCracken was born into a survivalist family, but what use is that when it’s his family he has to survive? Kelton is determined to help Alyssa and Garrett, but with desperation comes danger, and he must lead them and two volatile new acquaintances on a perilous trek to safety and water. Occasionally interrupted by “snapshots” of perspectives outside the main plot, the narrative’s intensity steadily rises as self-interest turns deadly and friends turn on each other. No one does doom like Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead, 2018, etc.)—the breathtakingly jagged brink of apocalypse is only overshadowed by the sense that his dystopias lie just below the surface of readers’ fragile reality, a few thoughtless actions away. He and his debut novelist son have crafted a world of dark thirst and fiery desperation, which, despite the tendrils of hope that thread through the conclusion, feels alarmingly near to our future. There is an absence of racial markers, leaving characters’ identities open.
Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst. (Thriller. 13-17)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8196-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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