Suspenseful, exciting and endlessly entertaining.
Paranormal activity threatens to consume the life of a not-so-average teenage girl.
In the wake of her 16th birthday, Sunshine and her mother move to the Pacific Northwest to start fresh. Spooky doings begin in the pair's new house almost immediately, but only Sunshine is able to truly feel the spirit's presence. With the help of her cute and artsy school chum, Nolan, Sunshine works to unravel the specter's mysteries before it’s too late. In doing so, Sunshine discovers some things about her past that set her on a path she could never have imagined. The author's adaptation of her popular YouTube series successfully translates the bumps and thrills fans will be looking for. The tone of the novel is neither grotesque horror nor cheap thrills but the sweet spot in between. It's important for a horror novel to be equal parts scary and fun, and the author achieves an excellent balance here. The book's final pages plant seeds for sequels, but if readers were to stop here, they would find themselves feeling quite satisfied, though further reading will be hard to resist. Sunshine's adventure is filled with bumps in the night and shadowy figures, alluding to a larger mystery and larger world that has plenty to offer imaginative readers who grew up on Goosebumps and the like.
Suspenseful, exciting and endlessly entertaining. (Paranormal suspense. 12-16)Pub Date: March 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60286-272-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Weinstein Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Faintly feminist soft science fiction for preteens and teens.
Once again, spunky teen-midwife Gaia takes down a dystopia.
After fleeing from the Enclave, Gaia finds the utopia to which her grandmother once fled (Birthmarked, 2010). Like an inverse of the Enclave, Sylum offers equality and fairness in spades, but once Gaia digs deeper she finds it’s another dystopia, this time controlled by women (namely the charismatic, blind Matrarc). But something in the air kills anyone who leaves, so Gaia must stay. Immediately she finds herself in the middle of a power struggle, as she questions the status quo, befriends the women who opt out of the "marriage and ten children" regulations that protect the population, argues that men (the majority population) deserve a vote too, performs secret autopsies and unravels the mystery of why those who leave die. Whew! Plus, she juggles a love quadrangle with two brothers from Sylum and Luke, who has fled his powerful father back at the Enclave to follow Gaia across the wasteland. A satisfying repeat of the same heavy themes as the first volume (women’s rights over their own bodies; an individual’s rights versus the power of the community and government; the way in which the masses are drugged—now literally—into quiescent submission) is here leavened with new settings and more kissing.
Faintly feminist soft science fiction for preteens and teens. (Dystopia. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59643-570-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake
When a Romeo and Juliet mobster romance just isn't enough.
A year after a terrible experience, 17-year-old Rosa Alcantara is leaving home. She's left Brooklyn for Sicily, where she will be joining her sister in the family business: organized crime. An unlikable petty thief, Rosa thinks she's prepared for joining Cosa Nostra. But there are reasons beyond the Mafia to fear her ancestral home. Her attraction to Alessandro Carnevare, the scion of a rival (and stronger) Mafia house, can only get her into trouble. Both the Alcantaras and Carnevares are hiding an unbelievable secret. Alessandro, like the rest of his family, has a feline form: a monstrous panther. Meanwhile, Rosa discovers that the Alcantaras transform into enormous snakes. The shapeshifting makes for a more deadly rivalry—or a more twisted romantic pairing. On top of everything else, there's a kidnapped mob schoolgirl, a murdered mother, an attempted coup, family betrayals, a tragic lesbian relationship and whispers of a conspiracy, all told in choppy, infelicitous prose. (It's possible the clunkiness of the prose may be laid at the feet of the unidentified translator from the German.) A smaller subset of plot threads might have allowed room for Rosa to grow into a more than just a survivor.
Paranormal romance jumps the weresnake . (Paranormal romance. 14-16)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-200606-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
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