Teens seeking melodrama, tense tragedy, and poignantly self-sacrificing protagonists will be amply rewarded.
Their last misadventures brought them close to death, but the star-crossed lovers roar back to life in this sequel.
Grief- and guilt-stricken, the survivors now (again) serve opposing families. Always dramatic, Mahyanai Romeo becomes a vigilante to protect his fugitive (and ungrateful) Catresou in-laws. Meanwhile, Juliet, mistakenly bonded to Mahyanai Runajo, seeks loopholes in her new in-laws’/captors’ commands even as they wield her like a weapon against her Catresou kin. Even Paris reappears, albeit as one of the living dead enslaved by the Master Necromancer, whose magical malevolence has hastened the Ruining, eroding the blood-sacrifice–fueled walls around Viyara and rapidly reanimating the dead as ravenous revenants. Gender-bending Vai—likely Twelfth Night’s Viola and one of the few main characters of color—continues to defend the Lower City. Reunion and romance are repeatedly postponed, and the apparent finale pauses for a strange detour into the land of Death, where the four protagonists slog through a Dantesque nightscape of tormented souls, allegorical semimedieval monsters, and Greek-myth–level trials. With a multitude of points of view, chaotic fight scenes, and the feverish medieval-world-besieged-by-zombies plot, readers may not even care about Hodge’s (Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, 2016, etc.) departure from Shakespeare or the absence of the Bard’s levity.
Teens seeking melodrama, tense tragedy, and poignantly self-sacrificing protagonists will be amply rewarded. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-236944-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A worthy second-chance romance.
In this follow-up to 2021’s Better Than the Movies, a 20-year-old college freshman gets a second chance at his dreams.
After the death of his father and his mother’s subsequent physical and emotional disappearance, Wes Bennett left behind all of his plans and the girl he made them with to go home and take care of Sarah, his younger sister. But now, Sarah has graduated, his mom is back on her feet, and by some miracle, Wes has an offer to pitch for UCLA’s baseball team. Liz Buxbaum, the girl he’s always loved, works for the university’s athletic department, taking photos and video of the team for social media, which means that maybe he can have a second chance at love, too. But since Wes left, Liz has made every effort to protect herself from ever feeling that broken again; there’s no room for love, because she doesn’t believe in it anymore. Or she doesn’t want to. This second-chance sports romance includes fake dates, quippy and quirky best friends, real heartache, and the sweet ache of first love. The clever dialogue keeps readers from drowning in the main characters’ emotional push-and-pull. Reading the first novel isn’t necessary for appreciating this one, although knowing the full history between Wes and Liz will only add to the ache and longing readers feel from and for them. Main characters are cued white.
A worthy second-chance romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665947138
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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