A fresh-air alternative to claustrophobic dystopias.
Two teens thousands of miles apart discover they’re haunted by the same desperate ghost.
On a family visit to a Welsh seaside village, Londoner Gareth discovers the lonely, dead child when his cellphone falls into an ancient burial chamber; she returns it to him only after securing his promise to visit her. In California, Olwen’s great-grandmother, Gee Gee, expresses her dying wish to return to that same Welsh village, her hometown. Olwen—known as Wyn—senses that the beloved Gee Gee she thought she knew is a façade hiding a mystery, one tied to her own haunting. After Gareth finds Wyn’s blog, the teens meet online and realize that each has been contacted by a ghostly girl whose name Wyn bears and whose urgent need is draining them. Her voice and image turn up on Gareth’s phone; Wyn’s dreams are more complex, interwoven with Gee Gee, the child and a strange young man. When Wyn’s family brings Gee Gee to her village and Gareth arranges a visit to his great-grandfather there, the teens meet and—exhausted and disoriented by their intensifying visitations—struggle to solve the riddle and free themselves before Gee Gee’s life ends. Though a reluctance to put characters in harm’s way combines with excessive foreshadowing to rob the plot of suspense, there’s an old-fashioned charm to this gently meandering tale that can’t be denied.
A fresh-air alternative to claustrophobic dystopias. (Ghost story. 11-15)Pub Date: June 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4058-4
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Flux
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deliciously disturbing, twisted tale.
Teens endure fallout from a game of Bloody Mary.
Everybody’s done it at some point: You look in the mirror and repeat the name Bloody Mary. Sometimes, the legend says, you’ll see your true love. Sometimes they say you’ll see the ghost’s face, and it means you will die young. But these four fourth grade friends—Grace, Calvin, Elena, and Steph—didn’t count on their little game’s still affecting them five years later. They were just having some spooky fun in Elena’s deceased grandmother’s room, after all. But now, even after all these years have passed, each of them still sees a shape behind them whenever they look in a mirror. But the frights really begin when a new girl arrives at school. Her name is Mary. The author effectively and slowly ratchets the tension and dread, crafting some cleverly frightening sequences that fans of the genre will love. Less effective is the characterization: As each chapter pivots perspectives, some readers may have to double back and sort out which of the troubled teens they’re following. As the scares pile up and the descent into madness moves forward, the characterization gets a bit crisper, but the first few chapters may pose a bit of a hurdle. The novel’s conclusion is satisfactory, but the real highlights here are the spooky sequences. The teens are all presumed White.
A deliciously disturbing, twisted tale. (Horror. 12-15)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-67927-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Who can't love a story about a Nigerian-American 12-year-old with albinism who discovers latent magical abilities and saves the world? Sunny lives in Nigeria after spending the first nine years of her life in New York. She can't play soccer with the boys because, as she says, "being albino made the sun my enemy," and she has only enemies at school. When a boy in her class, Orlu, rescues her from a beating, Sunny is drawn in to a magical world she's never known existed. Sunny, it seems, is a Leopard person, one of the magical folk who live in a world mostly populated by ignorant Lambs. Now she spends the day in mundane Lamb school and sneaks out at night to learn magic with her cadre of Leopard friends: a handsome American bad boy, an arrogant girl who is Orlu’s childhood friend and Orlu himself. Though Sunny's initiative is thin—she is pushed into most of her choices by her friends and by Leopard adults—the worldbuilding for Leopard society is stellar, packed with details that will enthrall readers bored with the same old magical worlds. Meanwhile, those looking for a touch of the familiar will find it in Sunny's biggest victories, which are entirely non-magical (the detailed dynamism of Sunny's soccer match is more thrilling than her magical world saving). Ebulliently original. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01196-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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