An appropriate fantasy for young readers who love spunky heroines and magical settings.
A charming fantasy about two ruling families from a place called Yonder.
Lilyannie, or Lily, goes about her days assuming that she is a normal girl in a normal town. Bored by school, she frequently ditches class to explore or simply get away from her teachers. In an ordinary town she would be considered a truant, but Lily is from Yonder. And while the folk of Yonder encourage their youth to explore their freedom, they are also sternly warned: Do not go into the forest. The mysterious land that lies on the border of Yonder is only for the 20-years-old-plus crowd, but the call of the forbidden territory compels Lily to explore. She attempts to sneak into the forest and is spotted by guards. She assumes that she is captured and resigns, but then a boy, William, appears and leads her to a door, surreally placed in the middle of the forest, that seems to go nowhere special. Lily passes through with William, finding her way through the looking glass. True to genre, the ordinary young girl discovers that she is anything but average. Lily learns from the mysterious William that she has the ability to turn inanimate objects into birds–a trick, despite its supreme oddity as a superpower, that comes in handy. Lily further discovers that the destinies of her family and Yonder are inextricably intertwined. Though William has several revelations for her, it’s the secrets he keeps that compel Lily and the reader onward. There are epic battles with hydras and confrontations with magicians, all the standard fare for lovers of young-adult fantasy, but the world of Yonder doesn’t materialize properly at times, given that the presence of e-mail and telephones doesn’t jibe with the alternate universe of the book. However, Lily is a wonderful character, and Li’s writing is thoughtful and enjoyable. The book’s surprise ending will leave readers reeling–and wanting more.
An appropriate fantasy for young readers who love spunky heroines and magical settings.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-1589-0
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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