A spirited, gripping story with a truly exceptional protagonist.
A 12-year-old girl searches for her missing father in a post-apocalyptic world filled with monsters and violent humans in Cox’s (A Beginner’s Guide to Fangs, 2018, etc.) YA novel.
Wisp has rarely ever strayed from the wooded cabin where she lives alone with her dad. According to him, the outside world is dangerous—a place where angry Fire Dragons burned many people to ashes. Wisp finds solace in a corner beside some bookshelves in the cabin’s main living space, which she calls her “Haven.” There, she’s safe from the things that Dad has told her about, including monsters called Tree Walkers and human marauders that might force her into slavery. Wisp often stays in the Haven when Dad leaves to hunt or scavenge. But one day, he doesn’t return, and when Wisp ventures outside, all she finds is his rifle. She seeks guidance from her late mother, whom she believes watches over her, despite having gone to “the Other Place.” Armed with Dad’s guns and a knife, Wisp braves the unknown to find him—but a few shocking revelations await her. Cox presents the narrative entirely from Wisp’s point of view, resulting in an endlessly curious read. He depicts her as being fascinated by ordinary things, as when she sees a Jeep for the very first time, and he showcases her discoveries with exuberant prose: “She squeezed and gripped the padding, scuffing her feet back and forth on the soft floor, awestruck at how comfortable the ancients’ things had been.” He effectively balances the character’s endearing naïveté with her proficiency; she manages to survive on her own in the forest, procuring shelter and sustenance, while also ably fending off threats. The steadily paced narrative reveals information about what’s happened to the world at large as Wisp’s journey continues, and although readers may predict some plot turns, there are enough surprises to maintain interest.
A spirited, gripping story with a truly exceptional protagonist.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-980227-75-5
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 29, 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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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