In 1944, Dart and Tamar, code names for two undercover operatives for Britain’s Special Operations Executive, parachute into Holland to reorganize the Dutch resistance movement. In 1955, a 15-year-old British girl named Tamar receives a box from her grandfather who has committed suicide. In it are clues to her grandfather’s past and her own identity, but she must go on a journey to make sense of the clues. In Peet’s Carnegie Medal–winning work, he tells the interwoven stories of Tamar the spy and Tamar the teenager in beautifully visualized episodes. Meticulously crafted scenes develop this long, complex and elegant work that is both a historical novel and a reflection on history—how a young girl’s life has been shaped by a past she never knew. Readers will be torn: They’ll want to slow down and savor the gorgeously detailed prose, but speed up to find out what happens next. Simply superb. (notes, acknowledgments) (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-7636-3488-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
Fiendishly romantic from start to (eventual) finish.
Belial, Prince of Hell, makes his move on London in this trilogy closer.
With 11 ensemble characters (not counting the odd Greater Demon) to juggle, Clare uses up most of her chunky page count untangling the romantic snarls of the first two volumes—plus chucking in occasional attacks by lesser demons or raving maniac Tatiana Blackthorn to give her demon-slaying Edwardian-era Nephilim something to do besides steamily tonguing one another, lengthily weltering in secret longing and self-loathing, or (at last!) explicitly consummating their ardor. The angular figures posing stiffly in Curte’s randomly scattered tableaux do little to either raise or turn down the heat of a narrative that runs to lines like: “He was about to crush his lips to Alastair’s…when a scream split the air. The scream of someone in anguished pain.” Eventually Belial does get around to launching his evil scheme to take over London and then the world despite already bleeding from two wounds previously dealt by legendary magic sword Cortana. The love matches among the tight circle of friends are notably diverse, involving couples whose various members include some who are part Indian or Persian, those who are gay or straight, and even the formerly undead. The book closes with a tidying-up epilogue and even a bonus story, “Aught but Death,” which focuses on Cordelia and Lucie.
Fiendishly romantic from start to (eventual) finish. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781481431934
Page Count: 800
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
This book will take root in readers’ hearts.
Fabiola Toussaint is a black immigrant girl whose life is flipped upside down when she moves to Detroit, Michigan, from her homeland of Haiti and her mother is detained by ICE, leaving her to go on alone.
Though Fabiola was born in the U.S., she has lived in Haiti since she was an infant, and that has now left her unprepared for life in America. In Detroit, she lives with her aunt Marjorie and her three thoroughly Americanized cousins, Chantal, Primadonna, and Princess. It’s not easy holding on to her heritage and identity in Detroit; Matant Jo fines Fabiola for speaking Creole (though even still “a bit of Haiti is peppered in her English words”), and the gritty streets of Detroit are very different from those of Port-au-Prince. Fabiola has her faith to help keep her grounded, which grows ever more important as she navigates her new school, American society, and a surprising romance—but especially when she is faced with a dangerous proposition that brings home to her the fact that freedom comes with a price. Fabiola’s perceptive, sensitive narration gives readers a keen, well-executed look into how the American dream can be a nightmare for so many. Filling her pages with magic, humanity, tragedy, and hope, Zoboi builds up, takes apart, and then rebuilds an unforgettable story.
This book will take root in readers’ hearts. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247304-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
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