Lacking in all but length, this adventure never makes it off the ground.
Seventeen-year-old Aleks leaves home to join the Siberene military in hopes of finding adventure but instead finds abuse, corruption, and despair.
Punishing physical training, meager rations, and a brutal beating at the hands of an officer lead to the white teen’s decision to desert. He escapes, traveling north to Syvana, where he finds a home, work, and romance. Unfortunately, the military quickly tracks him, dogging his steps at every turn. However, for unexplained reasons they do not take him into custody. Aleks has a dream: to fly an airship through the Stormlands. When the net finally begins to draw closed, he escapes to the skies. A chaotic plot, a bland setting, and mediocre writing are only a few of the problems in this companion to Take Back the Skies (2014). Aleks’ immaturity, selfishness, and willingness to sacrifice others for his own comfort make him an unlikable hero. Unnecessary scenes filled with aimless wandering do little to enhance the story, and the ending feels both forced and abrupt. Oddly, it also introduces many missed opportunities for inspiring characters and interesting drama. Russian surnames hint at a Northern European inspiration and, unfortunately, beg comparison to the far superior worldbuilding and plotting of Leigh Bardugo.
Lacking in all but length, this adventure never makes it off the ground. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61963-627-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Well-educated American boys from privileged families have abundant options for college and career. For Chiko, their Burmese counterpart, there are no good choices. There is never enough to eat, and his family lives in constant fear of the military regime that has imprisoned Chiko’s physician father. Soon Chiko is commandeered by the army, trained to hunt down members of the Karenni ethnic minority. Tai, another “recruit,” uses his streetwise survival skills to help them both survive. Meanwhile, Tu Reh, a Karenni youth whose village was torched by the Burmese Army, has been chosen for his first military mission in his people’s resistance movement. How the boys meet and what comes of it is the crux of this multi-voiced novel. While Perkins doesn’t sugarcoat her subject—coming of age in a brutal, fascistic society—this is a gentle story with a lot of heart, suitable for younger readers than the subject matter might suggest. It answers the question, “What is it like to be a child soldier?” clearly, but with hope. (author’s note, historical note) (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58089-328-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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