A good effort, but not compelling enough to capture many teen readers.
Sixteen-year-old Sadie Rose, mute since her mother's murder 11 years ago, finds her voice again.
After her prostitute mother's body is found frozen in a snowbank, with her own not-quite-lifeless body nearby, little Sadie Rose is taken in by the mayor of Rainy Lake, Minn., a boisterous frontier town. When she recovers she is unable to speak. Casanova's novel begins 11 years later, with Sadie Rose chafing under life with her foster parents, who, though wealthy and generous, hold themselves distant. Sadie Rose accidently finds photographs of a woman she recognizes as her mother, which sets off a cascade of memories that leads to her recovering her voice. She runs away to learn the truth about her past and discovers a sense of personal power. In the beginning, Sadie's character is hard to understand—she seems immature and fretful rather than haunted. It's not clear whether her muteness is physical or psychological, and the suddenness with which she returns to speech seems artificial. Her foster father is a caricature of self-importance; some of the supporting characters, also, seem too quick to become intimate and spill their secrets. In effect, the puzzle is too easy to solve, but the story becomes more compelling and believable once Sadie Rose leaves home. Period and place are well-portrayed.
A good effort, but not compelling enough to capture many teen readers. (Historical fiction. 13 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8166-8056-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Truly fantastic.
This dark fantasy duology opener has a magic school, a death, and five students who find themselves stranded in the wilderness.
Ren Monroe is a promising student wizard at Balmerick, a private school in the city of Kathor. Along with her best friend, Timmons, Ren is one of the few welfare students attending on a scholarship, and despite being one of the most accomplished people at the school, finding a placement in one of the top houses is proving difficult and is a hurdle in the way of the secret mission Ren has set out to accomplish. When a portal spell goes awry and Ren, Timmons, and four other students from different walks of life are thrown together into the Dires, an uncharted land where the last dragons lived, one of them ends up dead and the rest need to learn to work together to make their way back home before they succumb to the harsh environment or the terrifying revenant following them. This may well be the chance Ren was looking for to prove her worth. Placing elements of a locked-room mystery and an original magic system within the familiar trappings of a school for magic, this is a no-holds-barred tale of revenge, atonement, and the pursuit of justice set in a world diverse in skin color and social classes. Ren is a protagonist for the ages: equal parts smart, calculating, and ruthless, forming a lethal package as an avenging angel.
Truly fantastic. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-868-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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