An entertaining fable with supernatural combat enriched with intricate psychology and passion.
A teenage girl joins forces with a divine being to fight the forces of hell in Lee’s cosmic fantasy YA romance.
Seventeen-year-old Chicagoan Harley Ward has an abusive, alcoholic father, and she has a plan to rent an apartment for herself and her 7-year-old sister when she turns 18. She usually has a firm grip on her emotions, but this changes when she meets Draven, an attractive guy with amber eyes, chiseled muscles, and a mischievous smirk, at a club; he later gets a job at the deli where she works. This complicates her relationship with her best friend, a nice boy named Kai. Things get more complicated when Harley is attacked by ghoulish men and a horde of zombies whom Draven and Coach Hale, Harley’s Krav Maga instructor, handily destroy. It turns out that Draven is a 500-year-old demon-fighting Judge, and Coach Hale is actually Anka, a good demon; the attackers were minions of “greater demon” Marid, and they were hunting Harley because she’s “the Key” that can release Marid from hell. Harley develops the ability to shoot flames from her fingers and gets a magic tattoo that temporarily shields her from Marid’s demons—although snake demons, alligator demons, terrierlike demons, and hypnosis demons continue to plague her. They have seven days—plenty of time for Harley to make out with Draven, but if he touches her for too long he could drain her of life. Over the course of this fantasy novel, Lee manages to work creatively from the familiar Buffy the Vampire Slayer template: an angst-y teen with the weight of the world on her shoulders battling a monster menagerie while navigating a relationship with a broody, dangerous boyfriend. Her prose is sharp and evocative whether the peril that Harley is facing is domestic (in the case of her father) or demonic (“One demon leaps and lands atop me, wrestling me to the ground with the weight of a fucking truck. Jesus, what do they feed these things? Bricks?”). The result is a lively, imaginative love story with plenty of hellish energy.
An entertaining fable with supernatural combat enriched with intricate psychology and passion.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64937-031-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship.
A battered girl and an injured rugby star spark up an ill-advised romance at an Irish secondary school.
Beautiful, waiflike, 15-year-old Shannon has lived her entire life in Ballylaggin. Alternately bullied at school and beaten by her ne’er-do-well father, she’s hopeful for a fresh start at Tommen, a private school. Seventeen-year-old Johnny, who has a hair-trigger temper and a severe groin injury, is used to Dublin’s elite-level rugby but, since his family’s move to County Cork, is now stuck captaining Tommen’s middling team. When Johnny angrily kicks a ball and knocks Shannon unconscious (“a soft female groan came from her lips”), a tentative relationship is born. As the two grow closer, Johnny’s past and Shannon’s present become serious obstacles to their budding love, threatening Shannon’s safety. Shannon’s portrayal feels infantilized (“I looked down at the tiny little female under my arm”), while Johnny comes across as borderline obsessive (“I knew I shouldn’t be touching her, but how the hell could I not?”). Uneven pacing and choppy sentences lead to a sudden climax and an unsatisfyingly abrupt ending. Repetitive descriptions, abundant and misogynistic dialogue (Johnny, to his best friend: “who’s the bitch with a vagina now?”), and graphic violence also weigh down this lengthy tome (considerably trimmed down from its original, self-published length). The cast of lively, well-developed supporting characters, especially Johnny’s best friend and Shannon’s protective older brother, is a bright spot. Major characters read white.
A troubling depiction of an unhealthy relationship. (author’s note, pronunciations, glossary, song moments, playlists) (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781728299945
Page Count: 626
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues...
He’s in remission from the osteosarcoma that took one of his legs. She’s fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited.
Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She’s smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his—based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green’s signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: “My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched.” Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.
Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus’ poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-525-47881-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
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