Macabre and melodramatic.
Four teens spend an unsettling weekend at a fancy hotel in this Dutch import.
It has been almost a year since Fender, Kate, and Lucas lost a friend—but they don’t talk about her anymore. Thanks to Kate’s dad’s work meeting, they’ve got rooms at the five-star Riverside Hotel to celebrate Kate’s birthday weekend—supposedly there will be adult supervision, but in reality, they’re largely left to their own devices. The trio will be joined by their new friend from school, Linnea, who seems to have filled in all the gaps left behind by their friend who is gone. Fender and Linnea alternate as first-person narrators along with a creepy unnamed voice who stalks them both. It’s that voice that’s in the threatening messages delivered to Fender’s door on room service trays and written in black marker on the walls of Kate and Linnea’s room. That voice, brusque and accusatory, directs the narrative, creating suspense with a growing feeling of dread as it alludes to sexual assault, murder, and suicide. The characters are compelling enough to keep the pages turning, and the emotions, both intense and mercurial, feel apt for a young adult novel. The ending, however, feels anticlimactic, the twist not quite sufficient to justify the magnitude of the horror in all the preceding hints. Main characters are assumed White.
Macabre and melodramatic. (author’s note) (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-17598-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Underlined
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
A meditation and adventure quest offering solace to anyone bearing an unfair burden.
What does it mean to come into your own power by letting go of it?
The villagers of Empalme devoutly pray to Solís, the feared higher power who unleashed La Quema, or fire, on humanity for its ills of greed, war, and jealousy. As the village cuentista, Xochitl listens to and receives the villagers’ stories into her body, clearing their consciences, preventing the manifestation of their nightmares, and releasing them to Solís in the desert. Having diligently played this role since childhood, she is now a deeply lonesome 16-year-old whose only comfort comes from cherished poems. Worn weary by her role, she leaves on an odyssey in search of another way to exist. In their sophomore novel, Oshiro deftly weaves an intricate, allegorical, and often gory tale within a post-apocalyptic desert setting that readers will feel so viscerally they may very well need to reach for a glass of water. It is a world parallel to ours, rife with Biblical references and the horrific traps that Latinx immigrants face while seeking better lives. Xochitl’s first-person, questioning narration—interlaced with terrifying cuentos that she receives on her journey—is the strongest voice, although secondary and tertiary characters, both human and mythical, are given a tenderness and humanity. All main characters are Latinx, and queer relationships are integrated with refreshing normality.
A meditation and adventure quest offering solace to anyone bearing an unfair burden. (Fantasy/horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16921-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
A well-crafted, fantastical thriller.
Thirteen guests. Two imposters. Two directives. Three days. One murder.
When a mysterious woman approaches high schoolers Ruby and Wren while they’re working at Ye Olde Falafel Shoppe at the local Renaissance festival, her offer seems too good to be true. Wannabe starlet Wren is thrilled by the intrigue, but sober Ruby is cautious. Their task seems simple: impersonate the woman’s absent granddaughters at a dinner party at the infamous Hegemony Manor in exchange for $2,000 each. But events quickly spiral out of control when the Hegemony family matriarch collapses and the girls are thrown into a game that involves fighting for their lives in a world where nothing is as it seems and secrets and lies abound. This novel offers a compelling take on the classic locked-room mystery. The plot unfolds at a measured pace, and well-developed clues and red herrings keep readers guessing until the very end. Moments of levity and tenderness balance out scenes of high emotional tensions and darkness, and Henning’s command of figurative and situationally informal language is masterful. Although the characters feel a bit flat at times—their innermost thoughts and motivations occasionally obscured by the narrative—and the romances sometimes feel like an afterthought, it’s easy to become invested in their struggles as they come together to unravel the web of truths and lies. Ruby and Wren are cued white; there’s some racial diversity in the supporting cast.
A well-crafted, fantastical thriller. (Supernatural thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781250841063
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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