This fantasy delivers a bright tsunami of hormones and heroism.
A YA novel stars a teenager who can morph into a humanoid dragon.
High school sophomore Koji Owens and his dad have just settled in Yonkers. Koji’s father has retired from flying F-16s for the Air Force, and the teen hopes to make friends he won’t have to move away from. He’ll be attending the prestigious Saint Bernard’s Catholic School. While preparing for his first day, he trips over a small purple package in his bedroom doorway. Without time to open it, Koji pops the mystery gift into his dresser and heads to school. There, he helps the gorgeous Claire Faust as she stumbles from her ride to the curb. Her “dazzling sea-green eyes” enamor him instantly. Later, in chemistry class, Koji befriends Drake Collins, a genius, loner, and potential tutor. Surprisingly, Koji also discovers the package—that he’d secured at home—in his locker. When he gets home after school, the gift tumbles from his backpack. He finally opens it, finding a bracelet adorned with a seashell-like fragment. Once on his wrist, the bracelet gives him a layer of onyx scales, horns, and talons for feet. He also has wings and he attempts to fly over Manhattan to disastrous effect. In this endearing origin story, Conway (Harbinger, 2018, etc.) hits the high notes for YA romance readers and superhero devotees alike. An intriguing mystery kicks into gear, as well, when Koji learns he’s not the only person with a magical bracelet. The enigmatic female dragon Oceana teaches him the rules governing their elemental power. Koji’s chaotic personal life, including his crush on classmate Madeline Ignatius, keeps dramatic pace with dragon battles that level portions of New York. He takes seriously the phrase relating great power to great responsibility, insistent on fighting evil despite Oceana’s warnings to hide. The author keeps her tale fun and nerdy, luring fans toward an epic finale but also creating characters readers would love to see grow throughout a series.
This fantasy delivers a bright tsunami of hormones and heroism.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-945654-21-3
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Owl Hollow Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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