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
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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