Teens hoping for an Ellen Hopkins read-alike will be disappointed by this.
Milly, 17, is tormented by Amelia Norris, but Amelia isn’t another girl—she’s part of Milly herself.
Whether Milly is schizophrenic and hearing voices, has blackouts due to a personality disorder, or suffers from some more fantastical difficulty is unclear. That confusion passes for mystery as Milly attempts to understand the fire that burned down the house she shared with her grandfather and sends them to live with an aunt with secrets of her own. While Milly finds something good with Blake, the gardener who works for her aunt, her mental instabilities lead the teen to the hospital and some clarity, only to have an out-of-nowhere plot twist threaten her fragile progress. There are a few nice turns of phrase and description in this novel, but they can’t overcome all the other problems with Cronkhite’s work (which is inspired by her own mental health struggles, according to her author’s note). Milly’s voice comes off as completely inauthentic, and the dialogue is trite and stilted, full of sentences that sound straight from a school nurse’s pamphlets. The plot is full of unnecessary details and appears to be laboring to be edgy.
Teens hoping for an Ellen Hopkins read-alike will be disappointed by this. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-9293-4502-1
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK TO SCREEN
Thrill-seekers will be absorbed by this exciting story.
The lives of two girls named Hannah, living in different centuries on different continents, intersect.
Eighteen-year-old Hannah Dory is an English peasant living a harsh existence in 1347. Hannah Doe is a resident of Belman Psychiatric Hospital in 2023 New York City, brought in after being found on the street experiencing hallucinations and screaming something about a castle. Modern-day Hannah periodically enters a catatonic state, something the staff refer to as her “going to the castle.” Columbia psychology student Jordan Hassan is a new intern at Belman, and his interest is piqued by this girl no one knows much about. He decides to play detective and try to discover her history himself. Meanwhile, in the medieval England storyline, Hannah Dory tries to save her village from starvation by sneaking into the baron’s castle but finds herself swept up in a fight between the new baron and his rival. The book sustains a breakneck pace with short chapters and many cliffhangers that will keep readers’ interest. Patterson’s author’s note includes a list of mental health resources and describes his experience of working as an aide in a psychiatric hospital when he was a teenager. The narrative thoughtfully centers mental illness and touches on complex topics like suicide. Whiteness is the default; Jordan is cued as Muslim.
Thrill-seekers will be absorbed by this exciting story. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-41172-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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