A long and winding road to a botched surprise: Look elsewhere for satisfaction.
A girlfriend, a gay best friend, and an imaginary companion provide company and distraction for a teenager experiencing repressed trauma.
Beginning with the book’s title and the appearance of a dapper, spectral gent named Winston Ono on the first page, Goldblatt makes good on his claim at the outset that John, Paul, George, and Ringo are all over this exercise in misdirection. Not that the many embedded Fab Four riffs add anything significant beyond opportunities for readers to feel clever for spotting them. His mom may be just a voice on the phone and his dad an emotional wreck, but David Salmon keeps up a semblance of normalcy as he drifts between home and his Flushing, Queens, middle school—hanging out with secretive BFF Hector Caban, struggling to keep pace with aggressive and easily offended classmate Minnie Drugas, and getting used to having Winston suddenly pop up in his bedroom or out on the street to deliver vague, evasive comments. As it eventually turns out, there has been a tragic family event…but since the author studiously avoids having anyone mention it and provides only deliberately misleading hints, when David does at last reveal its nature with a sudden meltdown, it seems to come out of nowhere. An assurance thereafter that now it’s going to be “getting so much better” has, at best, a tinny ring. The main cast presents White.
A long and winding road to a botched surprise: Look elsewhere for satisfaction. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: May 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781949515510
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Phoenix Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
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