After a daring escape from Innovations Academy with the help of Leandra, the headmaster’s wife, Mena, Sydney, Marcella, Brynn, and Annalise set out to destroy the architects of their repression in the follow-up to Girls With Sharp Sticks (2019).
They’re free for now, but the headmaster will soon be looking for them. After all, they’re worth millions to the school and, its investors. Leandra enrolls Mena and Sydney in Ridgeview Prep in Connecticut to root out the son of an investor who may have the power to stop Innovations. To their dismay, the girls discover that misogyny and sexism are rampant in the outside world, but they could have an ally in the form of a talented hacker named Raven. However, it soon occurs to Mena that they may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Spot-on observations about society’s problematic, repressive, and violent treatment of women and girls pepper the narrative, and the powerful message that women should support and love one another is bolstered by a female-centric cast who unfailingly have each other’s backs. This entry lacks some of its predecessor’s spark, but a few twists keep the pages turning and leave plenty of loose threads for future installments. Mena, Annalise, and Brynn seem to be white, Sydney is black, Marcella has brown skin, and there’s some diversity in secondary characters. There is a same-sex romance.
A food-for-thought dystopian with a strong feminist message. (Dystopian. 13-18)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2616-07
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell...
12
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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
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A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning.
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Two teens train to be society-sanctioned killers in an otherwise immortal world.
On post-mortal Earth, humans live long (if not particularly passionate) lives without fear of disease, aging, or accidents. Operating independently of the governing AI (called the Thunderhead since it evolved from the cloud), scythes rely on 10 commandments, quotas, and their own moral codes to glean the population. After challenging Hon. Scythe Faraday, 16-year-olds Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova reluctantly become his apprentices. Subjected to killcraft training, exposed to numerous executions, and discouraged from becoming allies or lovers, the two find themselves engaged in a fatal competition but equally determined to fight corruption and cruelty. The vivid and often violent action unfolds slowly, anchored in complex worldbuilding and propelled by political machinations and existential musings. Scythes’ journal entries accompany Rowan’s and Citra’s dual and dueling narratives, revealing both personal struggles and societal problems. The futuristic post–2042 MidMerican world is both dystopia and utopia, free of fear, unexpected death, and blatant racism—multiracial main characters discuss their diverse ethnic percentages rather than purity—but also lacking creativity, emotion, and purpose. Elegant and elegiac, brooding but imbued with gallows humor, Shusterman’s dark tale thrusts realistic, likable teens into a surreal situation and raises deep philosophic questions.
A thoughtful and thrilling story of life, death, and meaning. (Science fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-7242-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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