Suspenseful and romantic, if often overwrought.
In this YA paranormal romance, a teenage girl tries to escape a recurring, five-day time loop that always ends with her boyfriend’s murder.
Grace Freeman, 17, of the town of Boone, Georgia, has died 41 times and woken up 42. On each occasion, she’s found herself in a different timeline—or perhaps an alternate universe—with many altered details. For example, sometimes her twin brother, Jem, is alive, sometimes not. After waking from each “Fall,” as she terms it, Grace has five disorienting days before she and her boyfriend, Ander Hale, are chased down by another teenager, Finn. These three alone recognize the pattern, and no matter how the couple tries to avoid it, Finn always ends up killing Ander. Despite their pleas, all Finn says is “We all have to pay for what we did”—whatever that means. Before the first Fall, Grace, Jem, and Ander had been an inseparable trio since childhood, but their closeness was threatened by a few problems: Ander’s drinking, which was worrisomely like his father’s; Grace’s possible acceptance at Alton Preparatory for her senior year, which would have taken her away from Boone; and Finn’s irresistible beauty and arrogance. But on this 42nd wake-up, something’s different: Ander doesn’t remember what’s happening, and other strange things make Grace question her sanity. She has only days to prevent Ander’s murder, stop Finn, and—she hopes—stop Falling. Bernard (Trust Me, 2017, etc.) writes capably from Grace’s overheated, first-person perspective, using highly somatized emotions to prove the heroine’s turmoil: knotted stomach, crawling skin, chills, a tight chest, nausea, clenched teeth. Although the stressful situation (and a final twist) help to justify it, the adolescent melodrama can sometimes feel over the top: a high school breakup means “We were ruined”; news from Alton makes Grace feel “like I was going to shiver into a thousand pieces.” The love triangle plotline is also nothing new, nor are Grace’s fairly standard failings, such as shyness, clumsiness, and an inability to believe that the cute boy likes her. Still, the characterization is thoughtful throughout, and Bernard makes good use of setting to help ground the story.
Suspenseful and romantic, if often overwrought.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63375-822-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A trick ending–in which the final three quarters of the book is revealed to have been only a (possibly prophetic)...
Potentially intriguing stylistic choices instead form a knot of incomprehensible prose in this convoluted sci-fi tale.
Starra Starbuck is a farmer on a polluted future Earth where human life is rapidly being driven to extinction by natural disasters. As one of the planet’s six potential psychics, Starra is drafted into an expedition to find a new home for humankind in a distant galaxy. The journey ends in disaster when the ship bursts open en route and only Starra survives. She successfully lands the craft on an alien planet, where she is pleased to find all the computers are programmed in English. Quickly resigning herself to the inevitable death of all her friends on Earth, Starra blithely steals a ship and jets off to an interplanetary poker competition. Her ensuing adventures–during which the environmental message of the narrative falls off the radar–are marred by malapropisms, grammatical errors and sloppy syntax. Starra’s narration is peppered with an excess of bland adjectives–one typical sentence describes three items as “blue” and three as “brown.” Constant repetitions of the phrase, “I sighed with,” to indicate emotion only contribute to the choppiness; Starra sighs with, among other things, “grit,” “confidence,” “determination” and “surprise.”
A trick ending–in which the final three quarters of the book is revealed to have been only a (possibly prophetic) dream–cheapens the already broken tale. (Science fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-595-35799-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Great for a middle- or high-school audience looking for some fun.
Comedy and suspense dominate this imaginative twist on the Dracula legend.
Harnissey, Dracula’s vampire nephew, and his companion, the ancient spider Morleaux, arrive at the old homestead for a visit when Dracula leaves for London. Harnissey, innocent, well-meaning and constantly bumbling, is attacked by the vampire sisters in residence, who intend to take over the castle while the Master is away. He and his intelligent spider sidekick eventually form an alliance with Dracula’s undead butler, a nicely drawn character always surrounded by a halo of buzzing flies, and a kingly, sinister cat, to do battle against a centuries-old vampire sorceress who’s arrived holding a grudge, along with her skeleton army. Bayne has a flair for droll comedy. His monstrous characters stand out clearly and distinctly as individuals, and the author’s clever focus on the other side of Bram Stoker’s novel helps fill out the story. The humorous undead protagonists, who are afraid of ghosts, add plenty of flavor to the story, as does the author’s incorporation of historical detail. The only flaw is Bayne’s tendency toward too-flippant dialogue, which is clearly designed to appeal to adolescents, but is inconsistent with the more sophisticated style used in the narration. Still, this is an entertaining romp that displays originality and inventiveness.
Great for a middle- or high-school audience looking for some fun. (Fiction. YA)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2006
ISBN: 0-595-40242-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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