A winning hero confronts serious issues in this increasingly dark YA/SF saga.
Transgender teen Oliver navigates relationships and other hazards with the assistance of a shape-shifting alien in Blume’s YA SF novel.
The sequel to the author’s Caring for Your Clown: Aliens Are Real (2021) returns to the travails of 14-year-old Oliver Jariwala. Assigned female at birth (and named “Olivia”), Oliver is male. He has suffered a traumatic, abusive childhood at the hands of his conservative father, Matthew, from whom Oliver’s mother, Marie, has obtained a divorce. Subsequently, Marie, a scientist, vanished in a laboratory accident—she apparently disintegrated—while working on a “molecular transporter” device. Oliver was adopted by a Marie’s second husband, the loving, equally science-minded Jon Jariwala, whose last name Oliver is excited to take for his own (“ ‘Mom wanted me to wait until I was eighteen,’ he said, ‘But now that I'm legally his kid, I don’t have to…I wanna make sure he knows how much it means to me’ ”). Earlier, the vengeful, psychotic Matthew had pushed for legal custody. Oliver was only saved from Matthew’s brutal control by an intercession from a remarkable friend: a humanoid female alien creature named Dindet, who arrived on Earth via (apparently) the same phenomenon that dematerialized Marie. Though friendly and technologically advanced, Dindet is backwards and troublesome in many ways; bizarrely, she takes the form of a multicolored circus clown (it appears clowns are a recognized extra-terrestrial race). Disguised as a foreign exchange student living with Oliver (while trying to help Jon unravel the mystery of Marie’s disappearance on the side), Dindet experiences frequent culture shock and becomes swept up in capers with Oliver in both this and other dimensions. Oliver, losing patience with Dindet’s increasing absences and erratic nature, experiences deeper relationships with boy-next-door Douglass and a brash upperclassman, Markus, a confident and cool senior connected to the school paper. But even Markus’ own stepbrother, Cody Mulligan, warns Oliver that Markus is bad news. Meanwhile, the institute behind Marie’s fateful science experiment presses for firm answers and results.
Like the ever-morphing Dindet, a more or less an amorphous blob whose forms range from a sort of Harpo Marx–like comical character to a slavering Lovecraftian monstrosity, the plot is a real mish-mash of elements, tilting toward the shocking, confessional work of confabulated author “J.T. Leroy” in its key themes of incest, domestic violence, and gender. This is YA fiction at a rarefied level—the author has a knack for conveying how real adolescents might process the complicated feelings experienced by the characters (“The senior turned to face him, some sorry and sad frown pulling at his lips. ‘And if—if you’re not into it, that’s fine. I don't know how, uh, boy girl—girl boys work, lol’ ”). The Dindet material, which is largely relegated to a subplot here, ultimately dovetails with Oliver’s drama in very dire fashion. The two narrative strands share a painful commonality (in addition to the notion of alien-ation) in their vivid depictions of personal violation and innocents being cruelly victimized.
A winning hero confronts serious issues in this increasingly dark YA/SF saga.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2022
ISBN: 9781737946342
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Shaky Alien Publications
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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