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
Only marginally intriguing.
In a remote part of Utah, in a “temple of excellence,” the best of the best are recruited to nurture their talents.
Redemption Preparatory is a cross between the Vatican and a top-secret research facility: The school is rooted in Christian ideology (but very few students are Christian), Mass is compulsory, cameras capture everything, and “maintenance” workers carry Tasers. When talented poet Emma disappears, three students, distrusting of the school administration, launch their own investigation. Brilliant chemist Neesha believes Emma has run away to avoid taking the heat for the duo’s illegal drug enterprise. Her boyfriend, an athlete called Aiden, naturally wants to find her. Evan, a chess prodigy who relies on patterns and has difficulty processing social signals, believes he knows Emma better than anyone. While the school is an insidious character on its own and the big reveal is slightly psychologically disturbing, Evan’s positioning as a tragic hero with an uncertain fate—which is connected to his stalking of Emma (even before her disappearance)—is far more unsettling. The ’90s setting provides the backdrop for tongue-in-cheek technological references but doesn’t do anything for the plot. Student testimonials and voice-to-text transcripts punctuate the three-way third-person narration that alternates among Neesha, Evan, and Aiden. Emma, Aiden, and Evan are assumed to be white; Neesha is Indian. Students are from all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East.
Only marginally intriguing. (Mystery. 15-18)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-266203-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Plenty of heat but not enough substance to keep the fire burning.
A romantically entangled stepbrother and stepsister in Los Angeles navigate their tumultuous history and take their relationship to new levels in this translated title by an Argentinian author.
Nick and Noah are madly in love: Their mutual attraction is established as the book opens with Noah’s 18th birthday party, during which she and Nick have an explicitly described sexual encounter behind the pool house. This fiery scene sets the stage for twists and turns in the lovers’ journey, including a separation when Noah is forced to go on a monthlong mother-daughter European tour. But reminders of their pasts (chronicled in the 2023 series opener, My Fault) threaten to undermine their stability. Nick’s wealthy estranged mother makes an unfortunate appearance, while Noah is haunted by the trauma of her father’s violent death. The blend of everyday complications (jealousy, parental disapproval) with frothy visions of high-society life is at once lacking in subtlety and intimately irresistible. The series initially gained popularity on Wattpad, and the novel follows the episodic structure typical of works on that site; sensual encounters occur at reliable intervals. Still, the characters and their milieu feel formulaic, and the writing is stilted. The differences between the two—Nick is five years older and has an office job; Noah has just finished high school—makes their suffocatingly possessive relationship feel particularly squirm-worthy. Nick and Noah and their families read white.
Plenty of heat but not enough substance to keep the fire burning. (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781728290768
Page Count: 450
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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