Fun juvenile fiction with lively, precise narration and a strong tendency to allegory.
Whimsical quest fantasy.
Caught between the dependence of childhood–particularly the lack of a driver’s license–and the pubescent yearning for autonomy, 13-year-old Carrie faces another boring summer day at home. At her mother’s urging, she settles down in her father’s rock garden to tackle one of the remaining titles on her summer reading list, The Hobbit. Her reading is interrupted, however, when Earth momentarily scrapes Vale, a planet from another dimension. This improbable intergalactic event deposits Carrie on a world of talking birds, animals and insects, where her attention is immediately arrested by a shard of glowing amber that speaks to her, revealing itself to be Alma, a goddess trapped eons ago by Lucifer. To be freed, Alma needs Carrie to deliver the amberstone to Lobo, the Great Wolf Spirit, an appropriately Tolkienesque quest that Carrie readily takes up. Aided by a pill bug named Tilt and two youths from the near-utopian city of Safe Keep, Carrie faces natural disasters, ravenous predators and, most daunting of all, the prevailing view that the amberstone should be returned to Safe Keep rather than to Lobo. Finally, Carrie is forced to choose whether to listen to her instincts or to the voices of those who have helped her. Clearly an allegory about emerging from adolescence to find one’s moral compass, Carrie’s journey is dominated by two spiritual systems, one represented by the Guardians–ethereal, Miltonic angels who serve the Creator and guard Safe Keep–and the other embodied in Lobo, Alma and even the imps of Bleak Meadow. Lobo and Alma embody the intuitive and immanent portions of Carrie’s youthful identity, while the Guardians are the transcendent, superego of the adult world–how she chooses to balance these elements will say much about her path to maturity. Heavily influenced by Tolkien and Lewis Carroll, Lecoq’s promising debut is a lighthearted amusement powered by crisp and economic descriptive prose. The dialogue, unfortunately, rarely matches the quality of the narration, and this weakness dilutes the drama of Carrie’s adventures. Billed as young-adult fare, this would appeal more to an even younger audience.
Fun juvenile fiction with lively, precise narration and a strong tendency to allegory.Pub Date: July 2, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-3114-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-drawn characters and playful twists keep this thriller fully charged.
This YA SF novel features a teen who must halt a virus that will kill two-thirds of humanity.
In Silver Oak, Maryland, Alice Sherman is a high school junior enjoying lunch near her campus basketball court. With her is Archie, her brother, a senior and science prodigy who likes equations more than his fellow students. Alice has been Archie’s one true friend since their mother left six years ago. Alice is about to catch up with Lalana Bunyasarn, her best friend, when a sudden “streak of electricity zaps through” her head. The agony intensifies until a Voice enters Alice’s mind, asking her, “Do you want this pain to stop?” The Voice then instructs her to go up to Bandit Sakda, a classmate playing basketball, and say that she loves him. Bandit is a beautiful Thai boy who’s talented and arrogant. Strangely, the Voice calls her Malice and says not to fall for him because “it’ll only make what you have to do later harder.” Eventually, Alice learns that the Voice belongs to someone from 10 years in the future who needs help saving humanity. A virus will be created by a person Alice knows that will wipe out two-thirds of the world population. Following the Voice’s directions can save everyone—except the person Alice is ordered to kill. Dunn’s (Star-Crossed, 2018, etc.) latest YA adventure offers increasingly tantalizing twists that gleam in succession like nested matryoshka dolls. Alice will charm readers with her quirks, especially her devotion to Chris Hemsworth of Marvel’s Avengers films. Tension builds as characters in the large cast, including crushworthy Zeke Cain and the brilliant Cristela Ruiz, become potential targets for Alice’s mission. Details about Thai culture add a splendid dimension to the narrative; for example, Bandit is pronounced “bun-dit” and means “one who is wise.” While the notion of a high school killer may not sit well with some, the author doesn’t use the device lightly. Her book takes a strong anti-bullying stance, doing so through an entertaining narrative that doesn’t resort to preaching. The author’s heart and craftiness make a sequel welcome.
Well-drawn characters and playful twists keep this thriller fully charged.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64063-412-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Any moral that may be gleaned from the tangled narrative is buried in confusion. (Fantasy. YA)
A convoluted fantasy offering a series of morals about justice, mercy, human treatment of animals and human treatment of other humans.
A cluster of animals have been educated by a World War II veteran and his activist wife. The animals, a now-vegetarian mix of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores, live in harmony on Cloudburst Mountain. Following their scriptures (the Bible, Animal Farm and judgments such as “Humans Are Evil”), they plan for the day when they will kill all the humans and rule the world. The tale follows the adventures of their coyote prophet Justice and human ally Cody as they travel the United States preparing other animals for “The Rebellion.” Though they meet mostly repellent, violent humans and mistreated animals, they also encounter enough well-meaning, victimized humans to make Cody question his alliance with the cause of human genocide. Meanwhile, the grandson of the original human missionaries to the animals threatens the entire endeavor as he plans to mine the mountain for uranium. Ultimately, the animals succeed in murdering the vast majority of the human race, giving them hope for a shining new day. This overly complex tale is dense with purple prose and far too many extraneous characters–for example, Gordon “Raindance” Fell, the Shadow Shaman of the Pokihallah tribe; and Forest Victor, who appears for the first time late in the story, saying of his never-mentioned-before dead wife, “if only her hatred of the evil deeds of the baby seal killers hadn’t drawn her and her cameras into a combative stance.”
Any moral that may be gleaned from the tangled narrative is buried in confusion. (Fantasy. YA)Pub Date: June 21, 2006
ISBN: 0-595-39274-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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