Not all readers will embrace this novel’s haunting, open-ended conclusion, but those who do will find much to appreciate and...
A teen struggles against both nature and her own past experiences in a reflective survival tale.
Sixteen-year-old Frances Stanton considers herself a monster. She likens herself to the gorgon Medusa, longs to be as emotionless as a rock, and drops dark hints about the crime that landed her on an airplane bound for a rehabilitative adventure experience. When that plane crashes into the Indian Ocean en route to Indonesia, Frances climbs aboard a life raft, floating to a small island. Levez keeps the stakes agonizingly high as Fran fights for her life, making incremental gains, trying to prevent catastrophic losses, and slowly forging a deep bond with another castaway, Rufus. (Both characters seem to be white.) Events on the island alternate with Fran’s memories of what led up to her current situation: she set fire to a wing of her London school, seriously (though accidentally) injuring a young teacher who, intending to help, was responsible for the removal into protective custody of Fran’s biracial younger brother, Johnny. Fran is intensely protective of Johnny against both their mother, Cassie—a rather pathetic figure dependent on pot and alcohol—and Cassie’s predatory boyfriend and quasi-pimp. Readers will quickly see that conditions on the island are more physically dangerous than in Fran’s squalid apartment—but much less emotionally treacherous.
Not all readers will embrace this novel’s haunting, open-ended conclusion, but those who do will find much to appreciate and discuss. (Adventure. 13-16)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-78074-859-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Rock the Boat/Oneworld
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of the familiar will find this an unchallenging goth-and-glitter pleasure
What with the race to save Jace from the new Big Bad, wonderful secondary characters get short shrift.
Clary's long-lost brother Sebastian, raised to be an evil overlord by their father (and Jace's foster father), has kidnapped Jace. While the many young (or young-appearing) protagonists want Jace back, only Clary swoons in constant self-absorption; her relationship angst, resolved two books ago, can't carry volume five the way it did earlier installments. The heroic, metaphysical and, yes, romantic travails of Simon, the daylight-walking, Jewish vampire with the Mark of Cain, would have made a more solid core for a second trilogy then Clary's continuing willingness to put her boyfriend ahead of the survival of the entire planet. The narrative zips from one young protagonist to another, as they argue with the werewolf council, summon angels and demons, fight the "million little paper cuts" of homophobia, and always, always negotiate sexual tension thick enough to cut with an iratze. Only the Clary perspective drags, focusing on her wardrobe instead of her character development, while the faux-incestuous vibes of earlier volumes give way to the real thing. The action once again climaxes in a tense, lush battle sequence just waiting for digital cinematic treatment. Clever prose is sprinkled lightly with Buffy-esque quips ("all the deadly sins....Greed, envy, gluttony, irony, pedantry, lust, and spanking").
Fans of the familiar will find this an unchallenging goth-and-glitter pleasure . (Fantasy. 13-16)Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1686-4
Page Count: 544
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
A dynamic story of grief, loyalty, and, finally, some cheerworthy victories.
With her father dead, her friends being yanked away, and fatphobia battering her, a teen finds affection and strength with a boy she meets online.
Fifteen-year-old Shay lost Dad a year ago, and she’s not close to her stepmother, who seems only to wish that Shay were thinner. At school, nemesis Kelly leaves oinking stuffed pigs on her chair and changes Shay’s cell ringtone to pig sounds. Best friends Dash and Boots are being stolen: Boots by brain cancer, which is killing her, and Dash by his father, who sends him to military school for being gay. Shay connects with a boy online (screen name “Godotwait4me”)—until their growing closeness infuriates Kelly so much she launches a website she calls Get the Pig Back in Its Pen, dedicated to breaking them up. StVil’s verse prose is inventive and alive, sometimes cryptic, sometimes lurching, sometimes stunning; it rhymes only rarely yet with the effect of a gut punch (“Car. Speed. Head. / Docs. Tried. Dad. Dead”). Food-based figures of speech are gorgeous; unfortunately, they underscore the stereotype of Shay as a fat comfort-eater, but refreshingly, the plot has no weight-loss arc. Shay and Godot’s text threads hum with mutual attraction, high wit, and each one’s self-defeating fragilities. Shay’s race is undesignated, although she looks white on the cover.
A dynamic story of grief, loyalty, and, finally, some cheerworthy victories. (Verse fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-70674-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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