A poignant tribute to the life and talent of Siobhan Dowd and an astonishing exploration of fear.
From a premise left by author Siobhan Dowd before her untimely death, Ness has crafted a nuanced tale that draws on elements of classic horror stories to delve into the terrifying terrain of loss.
When a monster in the form of an ancient yew tree crashes through his bedroom walls after midnight, calling his name, Conor is remarkably unperturbed—“Shout all you want,” he says. “I’ve seen worse.” Indeed he has, in a recurring nightmare of someone slipping from his grasp, a nightmare whose horror he keeps to himself. Daily life is intolerable, as everyone from teachers to bullies treats him as though he were invisible since his mother began chemotherapy. The monster tells Conor three stories before insisting that Conor tell one himself. Asserting that “stories are the wildest things of all,” the monster opens the door for Conor to face the guilty truth behind his subconscious fears. Ness brilliantly captures Conor’s horrifying emotional ride as his mother’s inevitable death approaches. In an ideal pairing of text and illustration, the novel is liberally laced with Kay’s evocatively textured pen-and-ink artwork, which surrounds the text, softly caressing it in quiet moments and in others rushing toward the viewer with a nightmarish intensity.
A poignant tribute to the life and talent of Siobhan Dowd and an astonishing exploration of fear. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5559-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not much forward momentum but a tasty array of chills, thrills, and chortles.
The victory of Jacob and his fellow peculiars over the previous episode’s wights and hollowgasts turns out to be only one move in a larger game as Riggs (Tales of the Peculiar, 2016, etc.) shifts the scene to America.
Reading largely as a setup for a new (if not exactly original) story arc, the tale commences just after Jacob’s timely rescue from his decidedly hostile parents. Following aimless visits back to newly liberated Devil’s Acre and perfunctory normalling lessons for his magically talented friends, Jacob eventually sets out on a road trip to find and recruit Noor, a powerful but imperiled young peculiar of Asian Indian ancestry. Along the way he encounters a semilawless patchwork of peculiar gangs, syndicates, and isolated small communities—many at loggerheads, some in the midst of negotiating a tentative alliance with the Ymbryne Council, but all threatened by the shadowy Organization. The by-now-tangled skein of rivalries, romantic troubles, and family issues continues to ravel amid bursts of savage violence and low comedy (“I had never seen an invisible person throw up before,” Jacob writes, “and it was something I won’t soon forget”). A fresh set of found snapshots serves, as before, to add an eldritch atmosphere to each set of incidents. The cast defaults to white but includes several people of color with active roles.
Not much forward momentum but a tasty array of chills, thrills, and chortles. (Horror/Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3214-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Those obsessed with paranormals won't dislike anything here, but everyone else should give it a miss
Boy meets Girl. Boy turns out to have a deep—nay, otherworldly—connection to Girl despite being the loneliest member of a family of immortal, sexy, good-hearted monsters.
Newly-orphaned Brooklynite Kate Mercier is now living in Paris with her grandparents and sister. She's grateful for anything that breaks the constant tyranny of her depression, even the weird obsession she's developing with Vincent, a hot Parisian she's seen in her favorite café. Vincent is equally obsessed with Kate, but after a few dates his secret is revealed: Vincent is a revenant, driven by some mystical force to give his life to save others again and again, constantly reborn as an 18 year old with rippling "rock-hard abdominal muscles." Along with his revenant family (one father figure, several extremely sexy pseudo-brothers and a teenage girl to be Kate's friend), he rescues at-risk Parisians while fighting off the revenant's evil counterparts among the undead. Kate and Vincent are, of course, drawn to each other, miserable with despair when apart. When they are together, it takes all Vincent's willpower not to molest his beloved; readers of Twilight and its ilk know the drill. But wait! Evil is afoot, and perhaps it will spice up their love life!
Those obsessed with paranormals won't dislike anything here, but everyone else should give it a miss . (Paranormal romance. 12-14)Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-200401-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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