A playful, enchanting YA story set in an icy future.
A girl investigates the secrets beneath her new city in Hall’s dystopian YA fantasy, one in a series.
In the far future—after the waters have risen and then frozen—a smaller civilization (one with little understanding of the ancient technology entombed beneath its feet) has inherited an icier Earth. Olivia and her parents have just moved to the scenic town of June, built on a steep hillside above an icy expanse. They’ve come so that her father—a scholar of ancient tech—can take up a scientific residency at the centuries-old Wardenclyffe lighthouse that stands at the edge of town. Olivia is impressed by the town’s massive library, and also by its population of functioning androids (the ones in her old community stopped working long ago), but the best thing by far about June is Ava, the pretty girl in Olivia’s art class. The two quickly become best friends and explore the forbidden tunnels under their school. They soon find evidence of a mysterious Institute buried beneath the town, as well as indications that someone—perhaps the woman in the red coat who arrived in June on the same day as Olivia—has been sabotaging the local androids. What begins as a lark between friends soon turns into a high-stakes adventure replete with kidnappings, explosions, and the lost secrets of June. Hall’s prose, as narrated by Olivia, has a naive directness that, paired with the striking illustrations by Ollikainen, recalls the work of L. Frank Baum. “He’s wearing a nice-looking outfit,” Olivia notes of one decommissioned android she finds, “although despite its pristine condition it looks about a century or two out of date, like something you’d see in a history book.” The pacing is a bit slow, and readers will not find the urgent melodrama that characterizes much dystopian YA (though there is a bit of romance). For those nostalgic for an earlier era of young people’s literature, however, Hall’s yarn offers enormous delight.
A playful, enchanting YA story set in an icy future.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781737391968
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
A dark and gripping feminist tale.
A young woman faces her past to discover the truth about one of her nation’s heroes.
When Effy Sayre, the only female architecture student at her university in Llyr, wins the competition to design Hiraeth Manor for the estate of the late Emrys Myrddin, national literary figure and her favorite author, it is the perfect opportunity to leave behind a recent trauma. She arrives to find the cliffside estate is literally crumbling into the ocean, and she quickly realizes things may not be as they seem. Preston, an arrogant literature student, is also working at the estate, gathering materials for the university’s archives and questioning everything Effy knows about Myrddin. When Preston offers to include her name on his thesis—which may allow her to pursue the dream of studying literature that was frustrated by the university’s refusal to admit women literature students—Effy agrees to help him. He’s on a quest for answers about the source of Myrddin’s most famous work, Angharad, a romance about a cruel Fairy King who marries a mortal woman. Meanwhile, Myrddin’s son has secrets of his own. Preston and Effy start to suspect that Myrddin’s fairy tales may hold more truth than they realize. The Welsh-inspired setting is impressively atmospheric, and while some of the mythology ends up feeling extraneous, the worldbuilding is immersive and thoughtfully addresses misogyny and its effects on how history is written. Main characters are cued white.
A dark and gripping feminist tale. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9780063211506
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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