An utterly sublime debut and a must for pop-culture fans.
In this YA sci-fi debut, a young man mysteriously gets smarter while dreaming and invents a life-changing device.
Fifteen-year-old Johnny Clark of River City, New Jersey, loves junk food and the Internet as much as he loathes school. He’s a mediocre student (who barely passed algebra), and yet he’s somehow built a small, battery-powered device from scratch; what the electronic device does, he’s not sure. When Johnny realizes that the knowledge to create it has come from his dreams, his slacker friend, Billy, notices his anxiety. He tries to cheer Johnny up with the latest headline about Citizen Sim, a hacker/prankster who’s targeted Google and Times Square. It also occurs to Johnny that he’d dreamed accurately about Citizen Sim before the anonymous hacker even appeared. Soon, Johnny’s reality starts to become dreamlike when his trigonometry class is briefly interrupted by four nearly naked strangers. Later, as he’s called to the principal’s office at the request of two detectives, fearsome skeletal creatures begin stalking him. A message from Citizen Sim appears on a television screen telling him to “ENTER THE CODE.” He types furiously into the device, and it displays the word “Gone.” Johnny, without immediately knowing it, turns invisible, and everything about his life changes. Debut author Solana crams enormous detail into setting up a delicious, go-anywhere plot. His narrative thrives on showing readers the unexpected, doing so in a giddy, winking tone. “The Clarks,” for example, “were the most dreadfully ordinary people.” Solana also revels in numerous geeky nods to superheroes (such as the Fantastic Four’s Susan Storm) and video games. As the book becomes more of a cyberspace action/love story, it expands into gorgeously rendered terrain (especially the overgrown Penn Station as a “living jewel”). Solana’s cliffhanger ending is perfect, too.
An utterly sublime debut and a must for pop-culture fans.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-1632260130
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Thought Catalog Books/Prospecta Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in.
Black is back with another dark tale of Faerie, this one set in Faerie and launching a new trilogy.
Jude—broken, rebuilt, fueled by anger and a sense of powerlessness—has never recovered from watching her adoptive Faerie father murder her parents. Human Jude (whose brown hair curls and whose skin color is never described) both hates and loves Madoc, whose murderous nature is true to his Faerie self and who in his way loves her. Brought up among the Gentry, Jude has never felt at ease, but after a decade, Faerie has become her home despite the constant peril. Black’s latest looks at nature and nurture and spins a tale of court intrigue, bloodshed, and a truly messed-up relationship that might be the saving of Jude and the titular prince, who, like Jude, has been shaped by the cruelties of others. Fierce and observant Jude is utterly unaware of the currents that swirl around her. She fights, plots, even murders enemies, but she must also navigate her relationship with her complex family (human, Faerie, and mixed). This is a heady blend of Faerie lore, high fantasy, and high school drama, dripping with description that brings the dangerous but tempting world of Faerie to life.
Black is building a complex mythology; now is a great time to tune in. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-31027-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
This fresh reworking of a Greek myth will resonate.
An otherworldly Latinx retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the South Bronx.
Pheus visits his father in the Bronx every summer. The Afro-Dominican teen is known for his mesmerizing bachata music, love of history, and smooth way with the ladies. Eury, a young Puerto Rican woman and Hurricane Maria survivor, is staying with her cousin for the summer because of a recent, unspecified traumatic event. Her family doesn’t know that she’s been plagued since childhood by the demonlike Ato. Pheus and Eury bond over music and quickly fall in love. Attacked at a dance club by Sileno, its salacious and satyrlike owner, Eury falls into a coma and is taken to el Inframundo by Ato. Pheus, despite his atheism, follows the advice of his father and a local bruja to journey to find his love in the Underworld. Rivera skillfully captures the sounds and feels of the Bronx—its unique, diverse culture and the creeping gentrification of its neighborhoods. Through an amalgamation of Greek, Roman, and Taíno mythology and religious beliefs, gaslighting, the colonization of Puerto Rico, Afro-Latinidad identity, and female empowerment are woven into the narrative. While the pacing lags in the middle, secondary characters aren’t fully developed, and the couple’s relationship borders on instalove, the rush of a summertime romance feels realistic. Rivera’s complex world is well realized, and the dialogue rings true. All protagonists are Latinx.
This fresh reworking of a Greek myth will resonate. (Fabulism. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0373-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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