The complementary strengths of a social-science writer and a psychiatrist produce a balanced sociological/neuro-biological exploration of violence as a public-health problem. Humans are exceptional: other species rarely kill their own. The authors tell how violence has been explained and countered, from exploding the XYY myth and giving a history of psychosurgery (including lobotomies) to trying to understand hate crimes. Seeing violence as multicausal in nature (drug addiction, poverty, and a search for control, etc.), they cite cases to demonstrate both sides of each issue, e.g., violence and its relation to TV. Perhaps the gravity of the problem comes through most arrestingly in street terminology, where a ``mushroom'' is a person unwittingly caught in drug-war crossfire. Aside from an occasional tendency to lop off stories (Joe abused of the elderly, but what did he do?), a thoughtful examination that compares theory with a reality where there are no satisfactory answers. Glossary; notes; sources; bibliography; index. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-531-11060-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Decades after the events of The Forest of Hands and Teeth (2009), teenager Gabry lives in relative safety. Despite the Barrier keeping the ravaging zombies out of town, Gabry is a terrified homebody who wants only to stay sheltered with her mother, the refugee heroine of Forest. Her nervousness is justified; when Gabry is peer-pressured into sneaking past the Barrier for a night of adolescent rebellion, several of her friends are zombified. (One wonders, if teens sneaking out for a snog is so dangerous to society, how there any humans left at all.) The ensuing chaos sends Gabry into the wilderness where, encumbered by revelations about love and family, she encounters zombie-worshiping cultists, the dangerous remnants of the army and her own past. Whatever comes between Gabry and her mother, there’s one thing they definitely have in common: Like her mother, Gabry experiences an angst-ridden, gloomy love triangle while fleeing from zombie hordes in the forest’s depths. Fast-paced despite the mawkish romance, it will be gobbled up by fans of the first volume like brains. (Horror. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 9, 2010
ISBN: 970-0-385-73684-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
This story presents an alien invasion from two unique viewpoints. Megs is 12, trapped alone in the parking garage of a Los Angeles hotel, forced to scrounge for food and water while avoiding alien spaceships outside and security guards who have taken over the hotel with vicious disregard for the safety of their “guests” inside. Josh is about to turn 16, trapped in his house in Washington state with his father and dog, watching their world being slowly but surely destroyed, day after day, from his living-room window. Both have to deal with supplies that shrink with every rationed meal. No phones, no radio or television, no electricity and no ability to step out of shelter without being “deleted”—this is a new world that only the truly brave can exist in. Written in short chapters that alternate between Megs and Josh, this masterful debut grabs readers by the throat from the first page and never lets go. It is clear at the end that there’s a lot more story to tell, and one can only hope that a sequel is not far behind. (Science fiction. 12 & up)
Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60898-011-6
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Namelos
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2010
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