Everything culminates in an action-packed, heart-wrenching conclusion guaranteed to chill readers to the bone.
The grisly conclusion to the Unwind Dystology.
Times have changed for Connor, Risa, Lev and company—the heroes and heroines of a brave fight to prevent the government from harvesting the organs of unruly teens. Chilling propaganda pushes the Marcella Initiative, a law that would allow the government to unwind teenagers without their parents’ permission. Also, Connor and his team find an “organ printer” that could be the answer they need to stop the unwinding atrocities around the globe, and egomaniacal Mason Starkey continues to attack harvest camps across the country with bloodthirsty vengeance. Meanwhile, a gang of evil, elite black-market organ harvesters pursues Connor with deadly intent. Shusterman’s finale might be the best one in the series since the first: He cuts straight to the chase with the plotting and creates horrifically heinous supervillians to keep it moving and ensure readers are glued to the edges of their seats. His settings are also dead-on, so to speak: In one iconic, symbolic scene, the Statue of Liberty’s arm is replaced with another, and readers can’t help but wonder if this is the future.
Everything culminates in an action-packed, heart-wrenching conclusion guaranteed to chill readers to the bone. (Dystopian adventure. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0975-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
In an unnamed country (a thinly veiled Philippines), three teenage boys pick trash for a meager living. A bag of cash in the trash might be—well, not their ticket out of poverty but at least a minor windfall. With 1,100 pesos, maybe they can eat chicken occasionally, instead of just rice. Gardo and Raphael are determined not to give any of it to the police who've been sniffing around, so they enlist their friend Rat. In alternating and tightly paced points of view, supplemented by occasional other voices, the boys relate the intrigue in which they're quickly enmeshed. A murdered houseboy, an orphaned girl, a treasure map, a secret code, corrupt politicians and 10,000,000 missing dollars: It all adds up to a cracker of a thriller. Sadly, the setting relies on Third World poverty tourism for its flavor, as if this otherwise enjoyable caper were being told by Olivia, the story's British charity worker who muses with vacuous sentimentality on the children that "break your heart" and "change your life." Nevertheless, a zippy and classic briefcase-full-of-money thrill ride. (Thriller. 12-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-75214-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
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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