Here’s hoping the Brannicks will be back—their story’s marvelous fun.
Izzy—short for Isolde—and her mother are the last in their centuries-old line of monster killers.
Izzy’s sister Finley disappeared while the sisters were dealing with a witches’ coven, and Izzy has felt guilty about the incident ever since, holding herself responsible. Looking for a break, Izzy’s mom moves them to Ideal, Miss., and sends Izzy to high school, an environment completely foreign to the girl, with the hope that she will be able to deal with a local ghost. Izzy makes actual friends there but learns that this ghost has far more power than usual, and she comes to suspect that one of her cherished new friends may have summoned it. Worse, she’s attracted to Dex, but the boy gives off vibes that Izzy picks up as supernatural. She can’t tell just what kind of being Dex might be, but she hopes she won’t have to kill him. Hawkins dials the level of humor up to high throughout most of the book, with deftly phrased witticisms in both the narrative (“worry slithered through me”) and her characters’ dialogue (“I am affronted!” declares Dex). Her characterizations shine as original and funny, especially Dex and Torin, an Elizabethan-era warlock trapped for centuries in the Brannicks’ mirror, who dispenses dubious advice. Finley still being missing, it’s entirely possible this, itself a spinoff of the Hex Hall books, may become a series.
Here’s hoping the Brannicks will be back—their story’s marvelous fun. (Paranormal comedy/suspense. 12 & up)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4849-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
A terrifyingly grounded accounting of the monsters that haunt us.
Grieving a dead parent is made even more unbearable by a zombie outbreak only Zharie seems to notice.
Zharie and her mother were the only Black women on the West Coast Swing dance floor, but after her mother’s death, Zharie is alone in other ways, questioning everything about her mom’s death, especially why no one else noticed she morphed into a zombie as she died. Now Zharie sees zombies everywhere, unsure if everyone else is oblivious, if it’s all a side effect of playing the Cranberries on repeat, or if it’s psychosis brought about by obvious trauma. But when Bo, a charming Black and Vietnamese boy, moves in above the apartment she’s sharing with her emotionally distant aunt, Zharie notices that half of him seems to be a decaying corpse—but only sometimes. The other half is the cute boy she wants to get to know better, if only because he’s an anomaly in this one-sided zombie apocalypse. Zharie narrates this mindfully haunting story with a sharp attention to sensory details, emphasizing the visceral shifts from living to undead and back; for Zharie, being close to Bo, with his soft lips and disarming smile, can quickly become proximity to death, gore, and a pungent stench. Still, she perseveres, learning that zombies are less a threat and more a symbol of heartbreak, but unfortunately there’s more to come as she uncovers the circumstances surrounding her mother’s final days.
A terrifyingly grounded accounting of the monsters that haunt us. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-368-07583-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A meditation and adventure quest offering solace to anyone bearing an unfair burden.
What does it mean to come into your own power by letting go of it?
The villagers of Empalme devoutly pray to Solís, the feared higher power who unleashed La Quema, or fire, on humanity for its ills of greed, war, and jealousy. As the village cuentista, Xochitl listens to and receives the villagers’ stories into her body, clearing their consciences, preventing the manifestation of their nightmares, and releasing them to Solís in the desert. Having diligently played this role since childhood, she is now a deeply lonesome 16-year-old whose only comfort comes from cherished poems. Worn weary by her role, she leaves on an odyssey in search of another way to exist. In their sophomore novel, Oshiro deftly weaves an intricate, allegorical, and often gory tale within a post-apocalyptic desert setting that readers will feel so viscerally they may very well need to reach for a glass of water. It is a world parallel to ours, rife with Biblical references and the horrific traps that Latinx immigrants face while seeking better lives. Xochitl’s first-person, questioning narration—interlaced with terrifying cuentos that she receives on her journey—is the strongest voice, although secondary and tertiary characters, both human and mythical, are given a tenderness and humanity. All main characters are Latinx, and queer relationships are integrated with refreshing normality.
A meditation and adventure quest offering solace to anyone bearing an unfair burden. (Fantasy/horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16921-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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