Ancient evil and modern-day mayhem collide in this explosive twist on the demon-possession tale
Melanie and her high school friends unleash sinister forces when they turn her private journal into a book of magic spells.
Mel Vong has a bit of an anger management problem. She hopes keeping a diary will ease the pressures of attending her high school, where nearly everyone belongs to the local megachurch. The ultraconservative teens and their parents believe that Mel’s best friend, Lara, a Wiccan, is a pawn of the Devil. At a used bookshop, Mel finds the perfect journal: a black, leather-bound book with creepy gold designs on the cover. When Mel is unable to write ordinary thoughts in such an extraordinary book, Lara suggests she use the journal as a magical spell book, a Book of Shadows. So along with Lara’s boyfriend, Caleb, and his friend Lucas, the girls write spells inside the book. (Mel’s surname implies she’s Asian-American; Lucas is African-American, and the other characters are white.) All’s well until new spells appear in handwriting none of them recognize. Soon, the teens are up against deadly forces that threaten their whole town. The story is told through Mel’s digital journal, convincing in its narrative gaps and laced with profanity, and the Book of Shadows; both are now in the hands of “Montague Verano,” a putative scholar of the paranormal. Mel’s story, the third in the Diary of a Haunting series, is dark, chilling, and suspenseful.
Ancient evil and modern-day mayhem collide in this explosive twist on the demon-possession tale . (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9202-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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