Atmospheric and provocative but hampered by a cacophony of messages.
An injured firefighter records eerie experiences as he searches for his brother during the London Blitz.
Following an earnest effort to restore sibling bonds sundered by his decision to register as a conscientious objector, Harry Black leaves his enlisted older brother, Ellis, in a pub that takes a direct hit only minutes later from a V-2. Waking up with head injuries, Harry woozily escapes the hospital to undertake the seemingly hopeless task of digging into the wreckage after his brother—describing his frantic efforts in disjointed notebook entries around prescient visions of future wars fought by machines that he illustrates with nightmarish views of hanging bodies and armies of shrouded figures in hazmat suits. Along with lurid details (notably a pocket full of glass eyes that Harry snatches from a warehouse fire which appear throughout as spot art) the authors, brothers themselves, add a mythic overlay by interspersing extended verse (occasionally rhymed) comments by Orpheus as observer and psychopomp and extending Harry’s quest into a dangerous, jumbled underworld that has its own king and pomegranate-eating queen. The attempt to shovel on another layer of significance by trotting in an otherworldly Kindertransport child and positioning her as symbolic of both true peace and a gender complement is ill conceived. Still, unlike his lyre-strumming alter ego, Harry does in the end bring off a rescue…albeit at a cost.
Atmospheric and provocative but hampered by a cacophony of messages. (Historical fantasy. 14-17)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0437-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Only for the largest and most well-used LGBT collections.
Seventeen-year-old twins Andrew and Andrea Morris share everything until Ryder Coltrane arrives on the scene.
In their small New York town, Andrew and Andrea are stars of their respective soccer teams at school and are hoping for scholarships to the same college. Both are popular. Andrew dates a new girl every couple months, but he never feels comfortable in the relationships. Ryder has moved to town to stay with his aunt and uncle while his parents are deployed to Germany, and he joins the twins’ small group of close friends. Andrew notices stirrings of strange feelings when Ryder is near. When Ryder offers a kiss, Andrew takes him up on it, and the two begin a secret relationship. However, secrets are hard to keep in small towns, especially from someone as close as a twin sister. Lavoie’s debut may be well-intentioned, but the tale is buried in pedestrian prose and larded through with details and scenes that do little to nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters. The situations may be realistic, but the characters don’t speak, and often don’t act, like real people.
Only for the largest and most well-used LGBT collections. (Fiction. 14-17)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60282-743-1
Page Count: 243
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Readers who relish self-indulgent inner monologue and expect dramatic arguments, seething resentment, tearful heartbreak,...
A “good girl” experiences an unplanned pregnancy and its aftermath.
Evelyn is a classic good girl, earning top grades and excelling in the art studio as well as on the track. When her parents start paying more attention to their acrimoniously crumbling marriage than to their daughter, she punishes them by becoming drinking, drugging, sex-having Bad Evelyn. Unfortunately, Bad Evelyn’s exploits become a punishment for her, too, as her protection-free sex with Todd leads to an unplanned pregnancy. Evelyn’s situation is the stuff of classic YA problem novels: What will she do about her pregnancy? How will she live with her choices? Will her heart, in fact, go on? Fearing expulsion from her competitive and deeply conservative Catholic high school, Evelyn relocates to Chicago to live with her aunts Linda and Nora and their daughters while she makes her choices and protects her GPA. Evelyn is a tough nut to crack, and she’s not particularly likable, but through all her self-contradictory crabbiness and emotionally withholding fears, readers may see someone recognizably real. First-time author Carter drags her narrative out, making readers angst along with Evelyn as she chronicles every week of her pregnancy and beyond.
Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59990-958-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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