A sensitive and nuanced exploration of foster care and mental health set against a dazzling backdrop of magic and history.
Pascoe’s YA novel follows a teenage witch’s journey through time.
Fourteen-year-old Rachel “Raya” Hollingsworth lives in foster care alongside 11-year-old Jake. Worried that she’s inherited her mother’s schizophrenia because of her tendency to hear and see things others don’t, Raya runs away. Her kindly social worker, Bryony Braxton—who just happens to be a witch (or “integrator”)—soon catches up to her in Raya’s hometown of Barking, England. Bryony reports that Jake also ran away from foster care and helps Raya to realize that the things she’s seeing and hearing, including her communications with Bryony’s cat, Oscar, are the result of her status as an integrator. Raya’s guilt over Jake’s disappearance accidentally transports her and Oscar (via magic) to Colchester, Essex, in 1645…right in the middle of the Essex witch trials. Bryony arrives to help, and together they attempt to contact Integrator Headquarters to find a way home as the “Witchfinder General,” Matthew Hopkins, closes in on them (“Raya protested but stopped when Hopkins grabbed her by the arm. When he touched her, she saw nothing but mud, smelled rotting things and tasted metal”). Raya’s bittersweet memories of her mother are absolutely heartbreaking and serve as an important touchstone for readers who may have experienced similar trauma. The author’s talent for balancing real-world issues with adrenaline-pumping exploits through time (including a perilous sojourn to 17th-century Istanbul) is impressive, as are her richly detailed descriptions of various people and places: “She heard every strand of conversation, smelled the cheese and yeasty bread of the court watchers, felt the change in temperature as they left the courtroom for the cooler hallway. The dappled light through the window was beautiful. The onlookers outside sounded like a murder of crows.”
A sensitive and nuanced exploration of foster care and mental health set against a dazzling backdrop of magic and history.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2017
ISBN: 9780993574733
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Trindles and Green
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This story is necessary. This story is important.
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is a black girl and an expert at navigating the two worlds she exists in: one at Garden Heights, her black neighborhood, and the other at Williamson Prep, her suburban, mostly white high school.
Walking the line between the two becomes immensely harder when Starr is present at the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend, Khalil, by a white police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Khalil’s death becomes national news, where he’s called a thug and possible drug dealer and gangbanger. His death becomes justified in the eyes of many, including one of Starr’s best friends at school. The police’s lackadaisical attitude sparks anger and then protests in the community, turning it into a war zone. Questions remain about what happened in the moments leading to Khalil’s death, and the only witness is Starr, who must now decide what to say or do, if anything. Thomas cuts to the heart of the matter for Starr and for so many like her, laying bare the systemic racism that undergirds her world, and she does so honestly and inescapably, balancing heartbreak and humor. With smooth but powerful prose delivered in Starr’s natural, emphatic voice, finely nuanced characters, and intricate and realistic relationship dynamics, this novel will have readers rooting for Starr and opening their hearts to her friends and family.
This story is necessary. This story is important. (Fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-249853-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A twisty and spooky debut.
Six teens use witchery and myth to try to reverse a town’s legacy.
As Halloween approaches, six young people’s paths converge in Haelsford, Florida: Logan Wyatt, a new witch student who still struggles to do basic spells; Jailah Simmons, Thalia Blackwood, and Iris Keaton-Foster, who form a clique of powerful witches dubbed the Red Three; and Trent Hogarth and Mathew Beaumont, two mundanes—those with no magical ability—who live in the cursed town of Haelsford and attend Hammersmitt School for Exceptional Young Men. Logan is relatively new at Mesmortes Coven Academy, but even newbies know of the entrancing Red Three and lust to be a part of their circle. To Logan’s surprise, she’s the one they’ve set their sights on, inviting her into their fold just a few weeks before Haelsford’s yearly hex brings deadly Wolves to its streets. Some readers may find the six perspectives jarring, while others will revel in the quick switches among different points of view as Haelsford’s central mystery unfolds. Necromancer Iris and greenwitch Thalia steal the show with spellbinding backstories and conflicts with others characters, while the rest feel less memorable by comparison. Most main characters are Black; Mathew and Logan are White. Trent and Jailah are queer.
A twisty and spooky debut. (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75896-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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