A lonely, motherless girl with a clockwork heart risks everything to create a mechanical friend in a futuristic Ireland where computers are forbidden.
After an ill-defined technological crisis known as the Turn caused a devastating epidemic, Ireland was divided into Pale and Pasture—sick and well—and now spurns all but the most necessary technology. The citizens of the Pale are all missing parts, but prostheses are "augmentations" rather than disadvantages. Gay and gender-fluid characters appear without remark. Dark-haired, brown-skinned Nell Starling-Crane, whose father fashions the sophisticated prostheses, is nevertheless set apart; she's the only citizen with a mechanical heart, the loud ticking of which makes her self-conscious. Contributing to adult society is crucial for avoiding a life in stonework or marriage, but despite a looming project deadline, Nell has no ideas…until she decides to build a sentient android companion from ancient computer parts, defying the law against artificial intelligence. Griffin explores the ethical quandaries of progress, love, class, and ambition in language as ornate as the characters' decorated prostheses; sometimes a phrase catches the eye, and sometimes the heavy mix of metaphors almost camouflages the story underneath. Chapters alternate between third-person accounts of Nell's exploits and second-person observations of Nell's past and present. The observer is not always clear, which makes the perspective shifts disorienting. Nevertheless, the plot is compelling, full of secrets, blackmail, and betrayals that resolve at just the right moments—convenient, yes, but satisfying.
Though occasionally uneven, this poetic, Frankenstein-esque tale forms a page-turning whole. (Science fiction. 13 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-240888-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Categories: TEEN MYSTERY & THRILLER | TEEN PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL | TEEN SOCIAL THEMES
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BOOK REVIEW
After a family tragedy, 16-year-old Ivy Mason hopes to reconnect with her aloof identical twin sister, Iris—but Iris has other plans.
When Ivy’s parents divorced 10 years ago, Ivy stayed with her father while Iris went to live with their mother. When their mother dies after falling off a bridge while jogging, Iris comes to live with Ivy and their father. Narrator Ivy is reeling (she even goes to therapy), but Iris seems strangely detached, only coming to life when Ivy introduces her to her best friends, Haley and Sophie, and her quarterback boyfriend, Ty. However, Ivy isn’t thrilled when Iris wants to change her class schedule to match hers, and it’s not long before Iris befriends Ivy’s besties and even makes plans with them that don’t include Ivy. Iris even joins the swim team where Ivy is a star swimmer. As Iris’ strange behavior escalates, Ivy starts to suspect that their mother’s death might not have been an accident. Is Iris up to no good, or is Ivy just paranoid? In the end, readers may not care. There are few surprises to be found in a narrative populated by paper-thin characters stuck fast in a derivative plot. Even a jarring final twist can’t save this one. Most characters seem to be white, but there is some diversity in secondary characters.
A lackluster take on a well-worn trope. (Thriller. 13-18)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12496-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Categories: TEEN FICTION | TEEN PARANORMAL & SUPERNATURAL | TEEN MYSTERY & THRILLER
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.
The dangerous city of Ketterdam is governed by the Merchant Council, but in reality, large sectors of the city are given over to gangs who run the gambling dens and brothels. The underworld's rising star is 17-year-old Kaz Brekker, known as Dirtyhands for his brutal amorality. Kaz walks with chronic pain from an old injury, but that doesn't stop him from utterly destroying any rivals. When a councilman offers him an unimaginable reward to rescue a kidnapped foreign chemist—30 million kruge!—Kaz knows just the team he needs to assemble. There's Inej, an itinerant acrobat captured by slavers and sold to a brothel, now a spy for Kaz; the Grisha Nina, with the magical ability to calm and heal; Matthias the zealot, hunter of Grishas and caught in a hopeless spiral of love and vengeance with Nina; Wylan, the privileged boy with an engineer's skills; and Jesper, a sharpshooter who keeps flirting with Wylan. Bardugo broadens the universe she created in the Grisha Trilogy, sending her protagonists around countries that resemble post-Renaissance northern Europe, where technology develops in concert with the magic that's both coveted and despised. It’s a highly successful venture, leaving enough open questions to cause readers to eagerly await Volume 2.
Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family . (Fantasy. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-212-7
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Categories: TEEN SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | TEEN MYSTERY & THRILLER
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