The fun here is in getting to the silly resolution, not achieving it.
Danger threatens when Harper falls for the perfect boyfriend, maybe.
Harper can’t believe that sensitive, handsome Logan really wants her to be his exclusive girlfriend. She’s just a farm girl who doesn’t even wear makeup. But Logan sweeps her off her feet and seems to feel the same about her. When disturbing things begin to happen around town—birds fall, dead, from the sky, bloody bones turn up in mailboxes, red handprints cover students’ cars—no one can make any sense of it. Harper has her suspicions, however, once she meets someone she didn’t even know existed: Daemon, Logan’s identical twin brother. Daemon enjoys violence and deliberately frightens Harper. Harper grows more suspicious of Daemon when a sabotaged motorbike sends her to the hospital, and someone nearly kills her friend. She investigates and learns about some things in Logan’s past that he has hidden. Still, she’s so attracted to him, and he begs her so effectively to stay, that she continues the relationship, and that decision could lead to her death. Hubbard begins with an exciting, frightening chase scene then flashes back to tell the story in sequence. Astute readers will pick up on the solution to the mystery from miles away, but that only heightens the suspense, especially as they have already tasted that chase scene. The difficulty here is the cop-out, too-easy resolution: The author briefly presents an interesting, realistic scenario to explain the mystery but bows to current trends and pushes a nonsensical paranormal solution instead. What a shame.
The fun here is in getting to the silly resolution, not achieving it. (Paranormal suspense. 12 & up)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59514-511-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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