Will appeal to readers who appreciate action-oriented tales.
Hints left by Charles Darwin of a world-changing discovery send a 12-year-old supergenius deep into the Amazonian rainforest.
Holed up in the Galápagos Islands and hotly pursued by both the CIA and the KGB for knowing Einstein’s most deadly secret (see Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation, 2019), Charlie decodes a message about the “Greatest Treasure in Human History,” carved by Darwin almost two centuries ago on a tortoise’s plastron, and follows further coded clues first to Quito and then on into the Peruvian wilderness—with, eventually, no fewer than four sets of secret agents and treasure hunters in her wake. What might the “Greatest Treasure” be? Gibbs plays his cards close to his chest as he employs multiple point-of-view characters to spin out a chase through crowded city streets and teeming tropical forests, punctuated by big explosions and hails of gunfire, to a climactic flurry of lurid fatalities. Though—except for the paucity of high-tech gadgets and a refreshing centering of a highly competent girl hero—comparisons with the Alex Rider series are almost inevitable, the author’s fondness for overexplaining never lets the pace build up a compelling head of steam. Also, his multilingual, ethnically ambiguous protagonist is so much smarter and more competent than any of the grown-ups that none of the pickles she gets into are more than briefly suspenseful.
Will appeal to readers who appreciate action-oriented tales. (Thriller. 10-14)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4381-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fun, if messy, thriller that’s not afraid to go straight over the top.
A middle schooler must outrun a cadre of strange individuals while puzzling out the truth of what he is in this science-fiction offering.
Fourteen-year-old Noah Prime longs to live somewhere bigger than his small town of Arbuckle, Oregon, though he is happily involved in motocross—at least until he learns that the course is being torn down to make way for a condo development. This bad news coincides with some particularly strange happenings in Noah’s life, such as a literal (and very confusing) collision he has with Sahara, a girl that he comes to find very interesting. This is followed by his experiencing a brief and total paralysis while arguing with some bullies, which his friend Ogden, who is on the autism spectrum, insists is due to a psychological phenomenon called conversion disorder. The truth turns out to be much more complex, and it sends Noah, younger sister Andi, Ogden, and Sahara on a madcap quest involving aliens, time travel, an erupting volcano, and much more. The adventure is laced throughout with goofy, sarcastic humor, balancing the fantastical and somewhat confusing turns of events. While there is resolution at the story’s end, it also clearly sets the stage for a follow-up. The main characters read White by default.
A fun, if messy, thriller that’s not afraid to go straight over the top. (Science fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5524-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions.
The efforts of six New Jersey kids to prevent the Nazis from winning World War II continue in this sequel to Westfallen (2024).
In 1944, Alice, Lawrence, and Artie struggle to correct their catastrophic error that, as Alice repeatedly has it, “DESTROYED THE FUTURE.” In 2023, Frances and Henry desperately research the changed history that finds the U.S. transformed into the Nazi-controlled tributary state of Westfallen. Jewish Lukas is largely confined, unable to help them or reach the magic shed that houses the radio that allows the kids to communicate across time, putting him at risk of losing his memories. Meanwhile, in 1944, Lawrence collects scrap metal alongside a kid who grows up to be a patient in the Home for Incurables, where Henry works in 2023. Could that kid hold the key to restoring the timeline? In this volume, Lawrence and Frances join Alice and Henry as first-person narrators, depriving Lukas and Artie of narrative agency. This lack is particularly distressing in Lukas’ case, as his isolation is affecting his personality. It falls to Henry and Alice to prod him into action—which is unfortunate for a novel that never names the Holocaust and omits persecution of the Jews from Alice’s father’s explanation of Nazi ideology (although antisemitism is an obvious feature of life in this alternate timeline). The crackling pace can’t obscure these lapses. Alice, Artie, and Frances are white, Lawrence is Black, and biracial Henry is Black and white.
Fast-moving but let down by questionable omissions. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781665950848
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
