A wildly imaginative, occasionally haunting fantasy anchored by strong, evolving female characters.
A girl tumbles into a fantastical world imperiled by toxic babies, a shape-shifting disease, suspicious magic, dubious technology, and greedy entrepreneurs.
In this frequently giggle-out-loud debut novel for teens and adults, 10-year-old “persnickety” ElizabethAnn Von Earp leaves behind her late-21st-century arid, insecticide- and hot tar–smelling town to follow her free-spirited Grandma—and a talking monkey wearing a polo shirt and a gold watch—down an animal burrow that proves to be a portal to the failing kingdom of Bumblegreen. There, magic has been banned; portal travel to other worlds is punishable by death; parents have developed an allergy to their babies so severe that infants must be fostered by genetically engineered monkeys; and a disease causes animals to turn into humans. With nods to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, there is a wealth of entertaining details to unpack here, and Peru keeps the narrative flowing, alternately shifting focus from ElizabethAnn to Grandma (a fugitive from Bumblegreen justice); monkey geneticist Zade Fandey; the duchess, a scheming hoarder (“to own is to exist”); wistful trout-turned-human Hank; pregnant cook Tammy, abandoned and seeking black magic vengeance; her seducer, Fast Eddie; Earl, the watch-wearing monkey; ElizabethAnn’s dog, Jackson; and Bumblegreen’s 13-year-old Queen Dahlia, who would rather make cheese than deal with affairs of state. Among her outlandish adventures, ElizabethAnn weathers capture by butterflies with dark intentions, a mad dash over the rainforest canopy, and a 20-foot growth spurt during a mob-fueled trial to depose the queen, eventually becoming aware that she has a stake in Bumblegreen’s survival. Indeed, the author deepens the fantasy with unexpectedly thoughtful moments as ElizabethAnn and Dahlia gain believable strength and insight over the course of the book. ElizabethAnn’s experience at one point with “the elusive nature of momentary inner peace,” tinged with sadness, is particularly evocative. The impressively creative novel is divided into four parts (“Five Syllables Worth of Girl,” “The Cumbersome Outriggings of Queenliness,” “The Understated Elegance of Impossible Tasks,” and “The Hue and Cry of a Bloodletting Mob”), each one introduced by an exquisitely detailed, pen-and-ink image by debut illustrator Harris.
A wildly imaginative, occasionally haunting fantasy anchored by strong, evolving female characters.Pub Date: May 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-51348-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pangloss Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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