This imaginative and sweet coming-of-age tale is infused with the magic of first love.
The daughter and apprentice of a famous magic-worker who helps others fall in love doesn’t know the feeling herself.
Bay Area residents Mimosa and her mother are the world’s last two aromateurs, “love witches” with senses of smell so precise they, like their ancestors, perceive individual scentprints the way most people can distinguish faces. They dedicate themselves to making pro-bono customized love elixirs for clients. But the cost of being an aromateur is high for 15-year-old Mim: she’s not supposed to fall in love herself, or she’ll lose her “nose” and the ancestral profession will die. When Mim accidentally gives her algebra teacher’s scentprint elixir to school soccer star Court’s newly divorced mother, she must figure out a way to undo the damage before her mother finds out. The cast of characters is refreshingly diverse, starting with the multicultural Mim, her Samoan best friend Kali (who’s also LGBTQ), white Court, his Latina ex-girlfriend, and other identifiably ethnic students. Lee is a synesthete, and her appreciation of natural fragrances and botanicals is evident. Although not as exceptional as the author’s previous historical novels (Under a Painted Sky, 2015; Outrun the Moon, 2016), this contemporary fantasy is charming and likely to resonate with readers who gravitate toward romance or mother-daughter stories.
This imaginative and sweet coming-of-age tale is infused with the magic of first love. (Magical realism. 12-16)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242832-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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