A teenager's stubborn conviction that her brother is still alive carries her past her friends' doubt, the pity of acquaintances, and overwhelming evidence to the contrary in this taut, engagingly cast mystery from the author of Hometown (1995). A decade after their parents' deaths in a plane crash, Arden and her 29-year-old brother Scott have established a comfortable routine in their small Wisconsin town, with Scott the very model of a reliable, conscientious caregiver—though in the wake of a snowmobile accident, he has turned moody. Scott's second snowmobile accident looks fatal—his new snowmobile, helmet, wallet, and other gear, are found at the bottom of a swift river. Then Arden finds a small item in his room that he should have been carrying when he died, and it's enough to make her sure that the incident was staged. Shrugging off school, the skepticism of officials, and the trust of her new guardians, she begins an obsessive search for her brother, or at least for some answers, turning up nothing except the circumstantial but profoundly revealing information that Claire, the woman he had been seeing, is pregnant. Qualey leaves readers wondering until the end whether Arden's belief is justified or just a grieving orphan's desperate fantasy, meanwhile surrounding her with well-drawn, distinctively individual friends and neighbors. In an explosively cathartic climax, Arden spots Scott in a crowd; although she may be more willing to forgive him than readers will, the author gives him believable, if ignoble, reasons for running away, as well as the fiber to return and attempt to make amends for his deception. It's a page-turner, with plenty of surprises and characters who make mistakes but learn from them. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-32298-4
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A high-intensity tale shot through with spectacular magic battles, savage mayhem, cool outfits, monsters, hidden doors, over-the-top names, narrow escapes, evil schemes and behavior heroic, ambiguous and really, really bad. When the murder of a favorite uncle touches off a frantic search for a fabled superweapon known as the Scepter of the Ancients, 12-year-old Stephanie is abruptly pitched out of her mundane life. She hooks up with Skulduggery Pleasant—a walking, wisecracking, nattily dressed, fire-throwing skeleton detective—and similar unlikely allies to fight a genially sadistic sorcerer out to conquer the world and to bring back the bad old gods. It’s a great recipe for a page-turner, and though Landy takes a chapter or two to get up to full speed, the plot thereafter accelerates as smoothly as Pleasant’s classic Bentley toward a violent, seesaw climax. Earning plenty of style points for hardboiled dialogue and very scary baddies, the author gives his wonderfully tough, sassy youngster a real workout, and readers, particularly Artemis Fowl fans, will be skipping meals and sleep to get to the end. Expect sequels. (Fantasy. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 3, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-123115-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An overall entertaining read.
In this sequel to The Similars (2018), tensions rise as the villains reveal a ploy to exact revenge on the Ten and their families and ultimately take over the world.
When Emma Chance returns to her elite boarding school, Darkwood Academy, for her senior year, things are different: Her best friend, Ollie Ward, is back while Levi Gravelle, Ollie’s clone and Emma’s love interest, has been imprisoned on Castor Island. More importantly, Emma is coming to terms with the contents of a letter from Gravelle which states that she is Eden, a Similar created to replace the original Emma, who died as a child. To complicate matters further, other clones—who are not Similars—infiltrate Darkwood, and Emma and her friends uncover a plot that threatens not only the lives of everyone they care about, but also the world as they know it. Hanover wastes no time delving right into the action; readers unfamiliar with the first book may get lost. This duology closer is largely predictable and often filled with loopholes, but the fast-paced narrative and one unexpected plot twist make for an engaging ride. As before, most of the primary characters read as white, and supporting characters remain underdeveloped. Despite its flaws and often implausible turns of events, the novel calls attention to larger questions of identity, selfhood, and what it means to be human.
An overall entertaining read. (Dystopia. 13-16)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-6513-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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