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
Those in need of more dystopian fiction (is there anyone in this glut?) could do worse, but it’s not a first purchase.
In a world where no one can die, murder is the only way out.
In an overcrowded, not-so-distant future Florida, the Initiative keeps a close eye on citizens. Years ago, a plague threatened humanity, but Pins implanted under the skin release nanites that keep everyone healthy. Sixteen-year-old Meadow has been trained by her fisherman father to survive and to kill if necessary. Zephyr, 17, is an orphaned Ward; his job is to clean up the corpses of the victims of the 300-plus murders each month with his only friend, Talan. Zephyr has blackouts and is sure he has killed several people; and sometimes during his blackouts he dreams of a silver-haired girl. When Zephyr and Meadow meet, they set in motion a series of events that will change their world...and maybe the world at large forever. Cummings’ debut, a bloody sci-fi thriller, strains credulity as the plot twists mount and previously held beliefs are shown to be false. Zephyr and Meadow trade off present-tense narration duties in alternating chapters, but their voices are not distinct enough for the device to work well. The world built is interesting enough, but it never comes alive and peters out at the close.
Those in need of more dystopian fiction (is there anyone in this glut?) could do worse, but it’s not a first purchase. (Dystopian romance. 14-17)Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-222000-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Despite this book’s currency, Allan Stratton’s Chanda’s War (2008) remains a far better fictional treatment of the tragedy...
What’s meant to be a symbolic round-the-world sail goes horribly off course when the yacht and its teenage crew, four disabled British veterans of the Middle East conflict and two able-bodied assistants, is boarded off Tanzania by members of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Present-tense narrator Rio, a Brit of Jamaican and Sikh descent, is one of the assistants. A potential Olympic sailor, she blunders into a psychodynamic she doesn’t fully understand, particularly the tension between charismatic Ash, who walks on two prosthetic legs, and his gorgeous girlfriend, the other assistant. But they are not on the boat for long. Led by the brutal (fictional) second-in-command to Joseph Kony himself, a band of mostly child soldiers manhandles the teens across Tanzania and into the Congolese jungle. Rio and Ash’s instant attraction fuels a puerile, almost embarrassing romantic subplot that stretches out along the bitter miles. Devoutly religious diabetic Izzy provides both tension—what happens when the insulin runs out?—and conscience, counseling the others to love their child captors. A creepy, witch-doctor–like LRA flunky seems painfully gratuitous, there to provide an extra fillip of exoticism—as though the machete-wielding children, including the dead-eyed girl Rio calls the Empty Child, aren’t horror enough. Contrivances and coincidences further undermine the tale.
Despite this book’s currency, Allan Stratton’s Chanda’s War (2008) remains a far better fictional treatment of the tragedy of child soldiers. (Adventure. 14-16)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-66128-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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