A wily, tender bit of Christian-oriented fantasy that’s also likely to entertain the skeptical.
In Syben’s debut YA novel, a teenage girl learns life’s lessons—in the afterlife.
Sixteen-year-old Chelsea Elizabeth Whitmore is killed in a boating accident while on a first date and returns to consciousness to find herself an angel at her own funeral. She also discerns the presence of Lydia, her late great-grandmother, who’s been sent to lead her to heaven and fill her in on the details of her new existence. Chelsea discovers that she’s to be part of an angelic combat squad, under Lydia’s guidance, charged with aiding living people and landing blows against Satan’s minions. As if to prove that the divine has a sense of humor, Chelsea’s first assignment is to look after her own bully, Sidney Sappington, and two of her bratty friends. The girls’ lavish late-night antics lead to a confrontation with a stalker; thanks in part to Chelsea’s and Lydia’s monitoring, though, the perpetrator is caught. Their next job flings them onto the 19th-century frontier to first protect a woman named Abigail and then her daughter, Maggie, as each braves demons, wildlife, and conniving fellow travelers. After that, Chelsea and Lydia visit the remains of Baltimore in 2902 to reunite Chase, a downtrodden divorcé of modest means, with his son, Fred, despite Chase’s ex-wife’s attempts to separate them. Chelsea’s successes merit an encounter with the Creator himself—and result in a revelation that weaves the previous chaotic episodes together. This spunky novel is full of verve and inventive scenarios, and its underlying moral insights never seem contrived or didactic; all the knowledge that Chelsea gains she earns through her own experiences and choices. Syben’s ambitious blending of sci-fi/fantasy motifs—such as time travel and Dantesque forces of spiritual good and evil—pays off in an easygoing, well-timed story that’s unhindered by its own complexity. Aside from this scenery, the novel’s themes are simple but not pat; the question of what makes for a good life looms large—even if the protagonist isn’t technically living.
Pub Date: March 28, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Stone Tablet Books
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unexamined toxic masculinity makes this romance anything but.
A girl’s strained relationships with two brothers causes strife in this trilogy opener by Argentinian author Ron that’s translated from Spanish.
In the small American town of Carsville, Kamila Hamilton was friends with her neighbors the Di Bianco brothers. Taylor was Kami’s constant, kind companion; older brother Thiago grew increasingly antagonistic. When she was 10 and a half and he was 12, Thiago coerced Kami into her first kiss. Following the revelation of a family secret, the Di Biancos moved away, but a restraining order against Thiago led them to return to their old home after eight years without contact. But 20-year-old Thiago’s new job as assistant basketball coach at the high school where Taylor is on the team and 17-year-old Kami is a cheerleader brings the white-presenting trio into close contact, leading to tense confrontations over past events. Thiago and Kami’s interactions are marked by antagonism and lust (Thiago: “Accumulated rage, bitterness, hatred, and arousal….I could have taken her then and there, not even thinking of the consequences”; Kami: “I felt like a small, defenseless animal being hunted by a beast”). The softer and more empathetic Taylor tries to smooth things over. Thiago’s abuse of power—he uses his role as coach to confront and bully Kami—is uncomfortable and feels like a misguided attempt by the pair to process their traumatic history, which Ron purposefully reveals, making this overall read more cringeworthy than romantic.
Unexamined toxic masculinity makes this romance anything but. (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781464234279
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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