THE HOPELING

by Maggie Master ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

In Master’s YA fantasy novel, an angel tasked with sorting prayers begins to suspect sinister doings are afoot with her colleagues.

Ipsa is a veteran prayer reader and sorter, having spent millennia receiving and directing prayers that arrive from what readers will recognize as humans on Earth, but which Ipsa and the other angels know as “hopelings” from “There.” The angels “still don’t know why these prayers found their way to our land, but it became clear that these poor, nonmagical creatures needed our help.” The angels live a peaceful, simple existence, processing earthly prayers in a streamlined corporatized structure in which each angel has his or her hermetic role. There are even mentors and mentees; Ipsa’s trainee, Muir, reveres her. Not everyone is enamored with Ipsa, though, most notably her diminutive boss, Eon; so, when Ipsa discovers a prayer she can’t ignore (it even sends a real, physical shock through her angelic body), she’s more than a little dubious when Eon, suddenly friendly, snatches it from her hand and tells her not to worry—it’s been “misdirected,” and he’ll handle it. In all her literal millions of prayers, she’s never heard of one being misdirected, and, even stranger, she can’t put her finger on why this prayer, in particular, has caught Eon’s attention. She decides to delve deeper into the mystery, spending hours in the minds of the prayer’s subjects, a pair of siblings from Connecticut named Isaac and Annie Conway. The more she researches, the more intrigued and confused she grows, and the more secretive she must be—her only confidants are Muir and another, older angel, Dhavi, who seems uncharacteristically reticent when discussing the matter.

The author constructs a vision of angels answering prayers that is refreshingly devoid of any superimposed monotheism resembling any major religions or systems of belief beyond a broad faith in a higher power that has the ability to affect even the smallest outcomes in Hopelings’ lives, from avoiding a flat tire on the way to a job interview to requesting sunny weather on a wedding day. Unfortunately, the “Here” in which angels live feels thin, and it can be difficult to envision how that world looks—in some passages, it sounds like it resembles Earth (“Most of the spaces in Ipsa’s world had been fashioned to help angels better understand the ‘hopeling perspective’”); at other times, it seems more like a celestial, star-shot campus floating in space. Conceptually, Master’s conceit is appealing, with the idea of a workforce of angels sorting through earthly prayers somehow both classic and novel, but some of the parameters of this system feel underbaked, and there are inconsistencies in what the angels seem to understand about Hopelings’ lives—the humans are a mystery to them, and yet something as specific as the taste of orange peels seems familiar and innate to the angels rather than learned or assumed. The narrative is intriguing at first, but moves slowly in a manner atypical (and somewhat unappealing) for the YA genre. These sins are redeemed, somewhat, by readers’ well-earned inclination to root for Ipsa and Muir against the powers that be, but it isn’t enough to carry readers through the novel’s flatter stretches.

A well-intentioned and religiously inclusive fantasy that never quite reaches the heavens to which it aspires.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2025

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT RELIGIOUS FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL