Suspenseful and thought-provoking.
A half-human teen from the planet Terros faces a dilemma when she’s sent on a mission to destroy Earth’s humans.
Though Terrosians have engineered their DNA to near perfection, 14-year-old Aria Evangular is unusually susceptible to such “glitches” as allergies, fever, and headache. Aria’s DNA looks completely different from that of her classmates, and she’s horrified to discover that her maternal DNA is human. Created by Terrosian scientists 1,000 years ago and carefully observed ever since, humans are considered filthy and primitive. They’re even destroying their own home, which Terrosians dub the Shadow Planet; soon, human-driven climate change will render it uninhabitable. When Aria’s assigned to join her father on a mission to the Shadow Planet, she learns Dad’s been tasked with releasing a virus in Dublin. It will eventually kill all humans… including, perhaps, Aria herself. But the virus isn’t the only danger; a hidden enemy is watching Aria. Can she save herself and her new human friends? While certain plot elements are too convenient, and the characters sometimes feel like mere vehicles for concepts, Forde gives readers much to ponder; realistically, there are no easy answers. Terrosians’ prejudice toward humans reflects all-too-human racism and xenophobia—which Aria, who’s brown-skinned (like all Terrosians) and assumes a Rajasthani Indian persona in Ireland, also encounters. Aria’s growth is believable and poignant, and readers will especially sympathize with her yearning to belong. Most human characters are white.
Suspenseful and thought-provoking. (Science fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781915071439
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little Island
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this...
Sentenced to a brutal juvenile detention camp for a crime he didn't commit, a wimpy teenager turns four generations of bad family luck around in this sunburnt tale of courage, obsession, and buried treasure from Sachar (Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, 1995, etc.).
Driven mad by the murder of her black beau, a schoolteacher turns on the once-friendly, verdant town of Green Lake, Texas, becomes feared bandit Kissin' Kate Barlow, and dies, laughing, without revealing where she buried her stash. A century of rainless years later, lake and town are memories—but, with the involuntary help of gangs of juvenile offenders, the last descendant of the last residents is still digging. Enter Stanley Yelnats IV, great-grandson of one of Kissin' Kate's victims and the latest to fall to the family curse of being in the wrong place at the wrong time; under the direction of The Warden, a woman with rattlesnake venom polish on her long nails, Stanley and each of his fellow inmates dig a hole a day in the rock-hard lake bed. Weeks of punishing labor later, Stanley digs up a clue, but is canny enough to conceal the information of which hole it came from. Through flashbacks, Sachar weaves a complex net of hidden relationships and well-timed revelations as he puts his slightly larger-than-life characters under a sun so punishing that readers will be reaching for water bottles.
Good Guys and Bad get just deserts in the end, and Stanley gets plenty of opportunities to display pluck and valor in this rugged, engrossing adventure. (Fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 978-0-374-33265-5
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
