by Ruth Frances Long ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 16, 2012
As Jenny and Jack prevail over curses, thorns, blood tithes and hidden identities, this fairy-myth blooms past floridness...
Entrapment in a faerie forest has never been so delectable yet thorny, green yet purple, romantic yet sacrificial.
Years ago, Jenny and her brother walked past a copse. His flute-playing excited the trees, which grabbed him and stole him. After seven years of nightmares and psychiatrists, Jenny returns to the copse and gets swirled into the Realm, which is teeming with fae. These range from Folletti, whose “wings [make] different colored lights as they fluttered,” to archetypal figures Titania, Oberon and Puck (though this is no Midsummer Night’s Dream). Trees, leaves and soil make a palpable forest setting through which Jenny runs, bleeds and swoons, seeking her brother. She’s fierce and steely when necessary, yet falls for a broken fae boy so she can fix him; when he warns her he’s dangerous, she doesn't believe him, which the text constructs as love. Amid tangled vines of motive and alliance, savvy readers can discern secrets before Jenny does. Prose grows like weeds (“a flash of light, golden, as bright as newly restored hope”), particularly the descriptions of eyes, which "glisten" both in the sunlight and “like broken glass.” However, there's real gravity beneath the overgrowth through a seemingly mundane name—Jack—and the layered meanings of its common-noun forms.
As Jenny and Jack prevail over curses, thorns, blood tithes and hidden identities, this fairy-myth blooms past floridness into a worthy, memorable read (with movie potential). (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3580-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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by Ransom Riggs ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 7, 2011
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
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by Scott Reintgen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2017
Fast-moving and intriguing though inconsistent on multiple fronts.
Kids endure rigorous competition aboard a spaceship.
When Babel Communications invites 10 teens to participate in “the most serious space exploration known to mankind,” Emmett signs on. Surely it’s the jackpot: they’ll each receive $50,000 every month for life, and Emmett’s mother will get a kidney transplant, otherwise impossible for poor people. They head through space toward the planet Eden, where they’ll mine a substance called nyxia, “the new black gold.” En route, the corporation forces them into brutal competition with one another—fighting, running through violent virtual reality racecourses, and manipulating nyxia, which can become almost anything. It even forms language-translating facemasks, allowing Emmett, a black boy from Detroit, to communicate with competitors from other countries. Emmett's initial understanding of his own blackness may throw readers off, but a black protagonist in outer space is welcome. Awkward moments in the smattering of black vernacular are rare. Textual descriptions can be scanty; however, copious action and a reality TV atmosphere (the scoreboard shows regularly) make the pace flow. Emmett’s first-person voice is immediate and innocent: he realizes that Babel’s ruthless and coldblooded but doesn’t apply that to his understanding of what’s really going on. Readers will guess more than he does, though most confirmation waits for the next installment—this ends on a cliffhanger.
Fast-moving and intriguing though inconsistent on multiple fronts. (Science fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-55679-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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