A likable, family-oriented fantasy tale, defined by the warmth of its plot and character-building messages.
New friends, a snowstorm, and an impending rift between kingdoms lead an overlooked young prince to find his voice in this third installment of a middle-grade series.
In this latest fantasy novel revolving around the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Concordia, awkward, resentful Prince Jasper in the neighboring realm of Thisley is tired of being treated like a child by his coddling mother and his father, whom the teenager “secretly” feels sees him as “insignificant.” Punishment for Jasper’s thoughtless ridicule of a member of the court, a week working in the stables, gives the 15-year-old prince the beginnings of a new perspective. His efforts earn respect and camaraderie from the stable hands and master. Jasper’s understanding of himself and others evolves further when he accompanies his mother to Concordia, where his older sister, the realm’s queen, is expecting her second child. In snowy Concordia , Jasper’s strength of character gradually emerges with the help of new friends Olive, the “Honorary Princess,” and Toby Tatter, the Concordia king’s page; a life-threatening avalanche; the secret of a missing map; and the prince’s earned self-confidence. If readers expect supernatural happenings or magic in what is essentially the story of misunderstandings among a well-meaning, extended family and those closest to them, they will be disappointed. Even the crises that arise are only mildly suspenseful. The book’s strengths are its well-defined, sympathetic characters; its colorful kingdom settings in olden times; and Jasper’s relatable journey toward self-discovery. Still, those familiar with the previous installments in Mager’s (Under the Summer Sun, 2017, etc.) pleasant series are best served here. The otherwise well-conceived narrative would benefit from fewer explanatory asides to inform new readers about what has occurred before in Concordia. Conversely, the author’s lessons in understanding and empathy, delivered through the experiences of Jasper and virtually all of the main characters, are threaded throughout the story with an admirably smooth touch.
A likable, family-oriented fantasy tale, defined by the warmth of its plot and character-building messages.Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-985758-24-7
Page Count: 182
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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