Good-hearted leads fight valiantly but wander off course in this confusing fantasy.
Four young people face an uphill struggle in saving the world against the forces of evil in this whimsical fantasy.
In this second book of Ruckus’ Princess Rouran series, university student Edith Orozco is still recovering from her train trip to a fantastical land in the series’ first volume, Princess Rouran and the Dragon Chariot of Ten Thousand Sages. Aided by her niece Moli and young strangers James and Kiza, Edith finds herself charged with a seemingly impossible task. To save humanity, the quartet must collect nine wonders from human history in nine days. Their first target is the Book of the Living, hidden in the Tomb of King Unas in ancient Egypt. If that weren’t challenge enough, they’re opposed by daunting foes—evil, babble-spouting AI Pandorai and his two henchmen, a resurrected Adolph Hitler and Japanese scientist Shiro Ishii. Sneaky human traffickers, mutated dinosaurs, and robot soldiers also meddle with their mission. That’s a lot to take on with just pluck and ingenuity on their side. They do receive aid from a handful of exotic creatures whose clues could best be described as cryptic. Despite an apparently never-ending string of obstacles, the foursome makes some headway until one of Pandorai’s minions changes that victory into defeat. Now they find themselves in a bigger hole heading into their next challenge. Ruckus’ YA novel works well about half of the time. The adventure sections featuring Edith and her sidekicks on their quest to save the world are enjoyable. Not so much the philosophical ranting of the megalomaniacal Pandorai and his lieutenants with their equally oversized egos, which serves to derail the narrative. Other derailments include the many strange beings popping in and out of the storyline without context. The dozen or so pages of notes and references testify to the density of the prose. Ruckus has painted a colorful world with appealing main characters, but many plot details will leave readers puzzled. Interested readers should start with the first installment.
Good-hearted leads fight valiantly but wander off course in this confusing fantasy.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781915338624
Page Count: 226
Publisher: UK Book Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.
A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.
The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”
A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
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