Memorable new characters experience the restorative power of friendship in this darkly fascinating, somewhat ghoulish sequel...
In this sequel to Furthermore (2016), kindhearted Alice and friend Oliver travel from Ferenwood to wintery Whichwood with the assigned task of saving “a very strange” girl from a terrible fate.
Since her mother’s death and her father’s departure, 13-year-old Laylee has become Whichwood’s only mordeshoor with magical skills to “wash and package the dead destined for the Otherwhere,” a ghastly, grueling, unappreciated task, sapping her body and soul. Watching her bronze skin, amber eyes, and chestnut hair turn silver, Laylee hopelessly realizes she’s “irrevocably ill.” Shocked and offended when Alice arrives suddenly and announces she’s come to “fix” Laylee’s “problem,” Laylee spurns her well-meaning visitors who try to help her launder the dead. When it becomes obvious that Laylee’s dying, Alice applies her own special magic in an effort to save her. Meanwhile, unattended ghosts of Whichwood’s dead avenge Laylee by wreaking havoc on the town, igniting terrible repercussions. Initially failing in her task, Alice eventually relies on her heart to “fix” her new friend. In deliciously descriptive prose, the confiding, familiar narrator directly engages the “dear reader” with witty asides, explanatory footnotes, and cautionary warnings as Laylee’s woeful tale unfolds. As she did in Furthermore, Mafi uses her built world to interrogate norms and relationships in our own while never losing sight of her story.
Memorable new characters experience the restorative power of friendship in this darkly fascinating, somewhat ghoulish sequel to Furthermore . (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-99479-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
A gorgeous debut: a necessary, cathartic, immersive healing experience.
In the aftermath of a brutal attack, a Black girl and her family discover that healing is progress, not perfection, as they strive to replace their sorrow with things they love.
Eighth grader Rain Washington lives with persistent sadness she can’t seem to escape. Even the doting attention of her beloved older brother, Xander, who goes by X, only offers brief reprieves from the unhappiness that consumes her. She wishes her name were more creative, believes her skin is too dark, and wants her body to be smaller. Her struggles are compounded by her father’s absence and her single mother’s work schedule. It seems that the worst is yet to come after X becomes the victim of a brutal attack by White fraternity members while visiting a college with a football teammate from his elite prep school. The attack’s aftermath challenges Rain’s limited coping mechanisms. New friendships and a healing circle facilitated by the school counselor provide Rain and her family the opportunity to confront generational trauma, develop healthy coping responses, and forge a new path forward with the tools to heal from current and past hurts and depression that may be genetic. The clear writing is authentic, gentle, and smooth, successfully exploring complex emotions and weighty topics, including poverty, self-harm, and racism. The even pacing is perfection. As Rain rises, readers are left rooting for her and others walking her journey.
A gorgeous debut: a necessary, cathartic, immersive healing experience. (Verse novel. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-315973-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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