Memorable but bumpy
A vivid but uneven debut takes place in an Asian-blend fantasy world.
The Bhinian Empire has a “two-child law.” Because boys are more valued, infant girls were smothered or left for wolves until the creation of the City of a Thousand Dolls. Not a city but rather “a large private estate ringed by a high stone wall,” this refuge grooms girls in one of six Houses—Flowers, Beauty, Pleasure, Combat, Jade and Music—until a man claims them as wife or mistress or until (shown less often) a healer or tradesperson selects them as apprentice. Now 16, Nisha has been here since age 6. Her unknown parentage and unique status (working as “Matron’s shadow” rather than training in a House) render her a predictable fantasy archetype. When girls begin turning up dead, Nisha pursues the truth—accidents? murders? suicides?—hoping to circumvent the Council’s plan to sell her and ruin her chance for freedom. Although Forster supplies twists and mystery, moments of revelation are somewhat lackluster. A romance thread targets readers older than those who’ll be riveted by Nisha’s special relationship with wild cats. (Bizarrely, those two themes eventually converge.) Moreover, Bhinian culture is a troublingly arbitrary amalgam of South Asian and East Asian details—jeera puffs and mukhwas, tea ceremonies and fan dancing, names like Akash tar’Vey or Lotus Emperor.
Memorable but bumpy . (Fantasy. 11-15)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-212130-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers...
A harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields.
The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for; he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. Arn does what he must to survive—and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn's chilling history pulls no punches, trusting its readers to cope with the reality of children forced to participate in murder, torture, sexual exploitation and genocide. This gut-wrenching tale is marred only by the author's choice to use broken English for both dialogue and description. Chorn-Pond, in real life, has spoken eloquently (and fluently) on the influence he's gained by learning English; this prose diminishes both his struggle and his story.
Though it lacks references or suggestions for further reading, Arn's agonizing story is compelling enough that many readers will seek out the history themselves. (preface, author's note) (Historical fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-173093-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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