Joyful, heartbreaking, completely bonkers, and exuberantly alive.
A freak scientific accident leaves an ordinary Maine boy atomically bonded to a fourth-dimensional being in this debut middle-grade novel.
“If it wasn’t for the fused-with-Zyx-thing, I suppose I would just be normal—whatever that means,” writes Felix Yz in his “secret blog,” first published by Bunker as online interactive fiction. Counting down the days until an experimental Procedure might free him (possibly fatally) from the alien bond that has made movement and speech painfully difficult for 10 years, the white eighth-grader chronicles the quirks of his loving family, his passion for drawing and writing, his run-ins with bullies, and his awkward crush on another boy at school. Meanwhile Zyx (typing through Felix’s fingers) provides running commentary as something of a “wise fool” archetype, dispensing gnomic truths and mystical insight with the eager charm of a hyperintelligent puppy. But the outré premise is only the setup for this unique, whimsical tale; it’s also about webcomics and chess and geometry and jazz and the astonishing “threeness of things.” It’s about the suffocating terror of death and the sweet agony of first love. It’s about transcending binaries, both the obvious—Felix’s mother is bisexual, his grandparent gender-fluid, the boy of his dreams both biracial (black/white) and bilingual—and those more subtle and profound, all in the most gloriously matter-of-fact way. Above all, it’s about Felix’s voice: acutely perceptive, disarmingly witty, devastatingly honest, and utterly captivating.
Joyful, heartbreaking, completely bonkers, and exuberantly alive. (Science fiction. 10-adult)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28850-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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