Personal and social progress are intertwined in Ruybalid’s (A Pattern of Silent Tears, 2011) vision of a dystopian future.
By 2026, what’s left of the United States is mostly ruled by a white supremacist government that enforces segregation and orders the deaths of people with disabilities. Martín, a mixed-race boy with cerebral palsy, is blessed with unusual mental and healing powers. As he and his family become more involved in the resistance movement, he sharpens these mental abilities while also improving his physical ones—learning to use a wheelchair and then, as he grows into adulthood, to walk. Training and learning are constant activities for the resistance fighters; as Martín’s partner, Blue Feather, explains, “[W]e became super-people...in order to survive.” After Martín’s mother, Sofía, is killed by a white soldier, Martín struggles with compulsive fantasies of torture and revenge. His successes and failures at abandoning this indulgence at the behest of his senior healers and loved ones make up some of the more compelling sections of the book. Ruybalid is at her best when she explores people’s inner darkness and the interpersonal consequences of oppression, as when Martín’s childhood friend becomes untenably clingy after being abused in detention. Unfortunately, the majority of the characters—regardless of age or experience—are ideal emotional processors, completely aware of their feelings and needs at all times. As much of the story is told through dialogue, this tends to flatten out the overall tone. This leveling is arguably an asset in uniting the large-scale heroism of the resistance’s actions with the petty domestic details of the toilet seat’s position and the allocation of chores. Logistical conversations among the many extended family members and fellow revolutionaries foreground the importance of sharing responsibilities as well as developing gifts, and it’s in this smaller heroism that the story’s action ultimately lies; when the “big push” to overthrow the government comes, readers see the prelude and the aftermath, but not the event itself. Packed with action and ideas, but stylistically invariable.
Pub Date: July 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463565015
Page Count: 465
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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