by Peadar O'Guilin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 30, 2016
Though the plot is not terrifically original, readers will root for the book’s disabled protagonist to survive.
Vanessa Doherty is a 14-year-old white lass who attends Boyle Survival College, one of many in Ireland that serve only to teach its youth how to survive the Call of the Sídhe.
The Sídhe are magical beings who were, in a distant past, banished from Ireland to live in a hellish netherworld. Seeking revenge, the Sídhe kidnap Ireland’s youth via the Call: the dreaded, unexpected moment when an adolescent simply disappears from Earth to land in a dreamlike, horrific underworld full of monsters—and the carnivorous Sídhe. From the age of 10, the Call is the moment every young person trains to survive, even grimly determined Nessa, who is permanently disabled from polio and can only navigate the training on crutches. One by one, students vanish, sometimes forever, into the Grey Land of the Sídhe. O’Guilin creates some suspenseful moments with his concept, but from its onset, the book recalls such predecessors as The Hunger Games or Divergent, in which young people undergo military-style training only to wind up in a bloody carnage, whether it’s among themselves or at the hands of their enemies. Where the book excels is in its worldbuilding, which imagines a realistically multicultural, modern Ireland unified by the Call and where the Irish language is no longer spoken and Sídhe is replacing English.
Though the plot is not terrifically original, readers will root for the book’s disabled protagonist to survive. (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-338-04561-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: David Fickling/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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by Rae Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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by Ransom Riggs ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 7, 2011
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
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by Ransom Riggs ; illustrated by Andrew Davidson
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by Ransom Riggs ; illustrated by Jim Tierney
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