A keen tale with a teen protagonist who will certainly earn readers’ sympathies and support.
A young, withdrawn girl whom everyone seemingly ignores may be fading away—quite literally—in this YA drama.
Thirteen-year-old Zylia Moss is an invisible girl. That’s how she feels in a large family consisting of her parents, grandmother, and five siblings. At both home and school, people seem oblivious to her presence: It’s as if Zylia appears out of nowhere or vanishes without anyone noticing. Even if she manages to catch folks’ attention, it’s the type she doesn’t want, as when they witness an embarrassing stumble. But Zylia soon fears she’s genuinely disappearing, stemming from the story of Angelica, the long-lost, presumed dead great-aunt she’s never known. Zylia’s dementia-ridden grandmother is convinced that the teenager is just like Angelica, with an apparent ability to fade into another world. Zylia searches for answers in the family’s attic, which contains a few particulars on Angelica, including a diary. But what Zylia ultimately finds is another girl her age who, not unlike Zylia herself, suffers in silence. Zylia wants to help this girl, but once she experiences what she describes as an “out-of-body movement,” she comes dangerously close to Angelica’s supposed fate—vanishing for good. Despite hints of the supernatural, Mount (The Nanny Song, 2018) wisely keeps the story vague. For example, it’s unclear for the majority of the novel whether or not Zylia’s predicament is literal or metaphorical. In either case, the tale effectively addresses adolescent troubles, namely meek, unpopular Zylia’s relentless loneliness. Though supporting characters aren’t typically likable, especially some obnoxious eighth-grade students, the author offers relief with Zylia’s sweet little sister, Ivy; a new friend, Terra Grant; and a genial crush, Josh Pierceton. There’s likewise humor: Most people, other than her family, mispronounce Zylia’s name in varying ways. The prose throughout is precise and illustrative: “There were frozen chunks of ice caught up in places along the water’s edge, but I could hear the liquid flowing below, unimpeded by the temperature.”
A keen tale with a teen protagonist who will certainly earn readers’ sympathies and support.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9996556-5-8
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Between the Lines Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2019
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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