Cinematic, CGI–ready action—but also a moving exploration of memory and identity.
Can an origin story for Bucky Barnes as he becomes the Winter Soldier be anything but painful?
In this volume, Lee continues exploring Marvel’s misunderstood antagonists. It’s 1954, smack in the middle of Bucky’s journey from hero to villain and back again. Instead of Bucky, there’s only the Winter Soldier, a brainwashed torturer and assassin for the (slightly Cold War–caricatured) Soviet Union. The Soldier—confused by his lack of memory, wishing he knew his own name—is nonetheless an obedient asset and a loyal partner to his handler. As the Winter Soldier performs his mission, in a storyline interspersed with movie-style action scenes, some chapters flash back to 1941: The U.S. hasn’t yet entered the war, and 16-year-old Bucky pesters his snarky, affectionate guardian to let him enlist (roughly following comics canon, not the movie). Teen Bucky’s an incorrigible flirt and smuggler (or entrepreneur!), but he wants to serve his country. Knowledgeable readers and new fans alike will see the forthcoming disaster in young Bucky’s eagerness to fight for people who he’s beginning to realize are morally compromised. He starts up a doomed but profound romance with a girl he meets on his first mission. Meanwhile, in 1954, the Soldier’s resurfacing memories of Captain America reveal an extremely close affection between the two. All characters appear to be White.
Cinematic, CGI–ready action—but also a moving exploration of memory and identity. (Science fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-368-02227-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Marvel Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another engaging entry in this world of spies and international intrigue.
Pop superstar Winter Young is again drawn into the world of secret agent Sydney Cossette in this follow-up to Stars and Smoke (2023).
Though constantly on one another’s minds, Winter and Sydney have resisted making any contact with each other since narrowly surviving a mission in which Panacea, the secret organization Sydney works for, tapped Winter to use his megastar status to infiltrate a wealthy and powerful criminal underworld. Ratcheting up the tension in this enemies-to-lovers romantic thriller is the fact that Sydney is being sent to Singapore to extract Tems, a fellow agent who also happens to be her ex. Winter, who needs a plus-one for a Warcross Championship gala in order to better maintain his cover, invites his former girlfriend. Witty insults and crossed signals abound in the pair’s smoldering relationship, but this second installment is a bit darker than the first. If some of the betrayals and losses involved are easy enough to spot coming, they still pack an emotional punch due to the strong development of Winter’s and Sydney’s respective backstories, told in alternating third-person narratives, both involving abuse and psychological pain. Winter is Chinese American; Sydney is white, and there’s a diverse cast of supporting characters whom readers will likely see again—Lu has left the ending tantalizingly open for another installment.
Another engaging entry in this world of spies and international intrigue. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9781250852915
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection.
Broken people, complicated families, magic, and Faerie politics: Black’s back.
After the tumultuous ending to the last volume (marriage, exile, and the seeming collapse of all her plots), Jude finds herself in the human world, which lacks appeal despite a childhood spent longing to go back. The price of her upbringing becomes clear: A human raised in the multihued, multiformed, always capricious Faerie High Court by the man who killed her parents, trained for intrigue and combat, recruited to a spy organization, and ultimately the power behind the coup and the latest High King, Jude no longer understands how to exist happily in a world that isn’t full of magic and danger. A plea from her estranged twin sends her secretly back to Faerie, where things immediately come to a boil with Cardan (king, nemesis, love interest) and all the many political strands Jude has tugged on for the past two volumes. New readers will need to go back to The Cruel Prince (2018) to follow the complexities—political and personal side plots abound—but the legions of established fans will love every minute of this lushly described, tightly plotted trilogy closer. Jude might be traumatized and emotionally unhealthy, but she’s an antihero worth cheering on. There are few physical descriptions of humans and some queer representation.
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31042-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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