Magical metafiction doesn’t live up to its premise
A fictional character in the real world hasn’t escaped her origins.
Rewriting the end of her own story in Unwritten (2018) was supposed to make everything better for 12-year-old Gracie. But the real world is no picnic: The former residents of fictional Bondoff are hungry and cranky, living in cramped quarters with their author, Gertrude. Gracie’s friend Walter’s parents hold Gracie’s past as an author-controlled villain against her. Walter’s folks aren’t alone in thinking Gracie might be wicked, as Cassandra, the evil stepmother from Bondoff, thinks she can reclaim Gracie’s love. In Cassandra’s clutches, without even the privacy of her thoughts to call her own, all Gracie can do is escape into a different story, one of Gertrude’s half-finished, abandoned manuscripts. Gracie and Walter are trapped in a feminist gothic horror—“It was supposed to be a metaphor,” Gertrude had explained—but not much emerges from this clash of tropes. Gracie and Walter, like all of Gertrude’s other (apparently all white) characters, were written as Gertrude worked out her personal psychodramas, and all of them are based on aspects of the writer and her family. Though that framing should allow for compelling character building, the result is disappointingly simplistic and flat.
Magical metafiction doesn’t live up to its premise . (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63163-433-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Jolly Fish Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Further proof that librarians are mighty in all universes. Any questions?
An inkling that something has gone “Terribly Wrong” in the cosmic Library prompts Second Apprentice Librarian Lenora to book a return visit.
Almost immediately, 12-year-old Lenora learns to her dismay that the vain, choleric (and oddly familiar, at least to politically aware readers) new Director is firing Librarians wholesale, crowing over fictive “patron fees,” and cutting down the book collections. Stoutly, she ventures back into the endless stacks of the Library of Ever (2019) to confront him—only to discover that he’s just a tantrum-prone pawn of the Forces of Darkness, a trio of slithery agents out to extinguish the light of learning everywhere. Joined by the Director’s naïve but computer-savvy young daughter, Lenora resolutely sets out to stymie the bowler-hatted foes. Along the way, she demonstrates the well-known thrills of reference work by, for instance, responding to a young patron’s query by seeking out the largest meaningful number (pro tip: “infinity” is not a number) and helping a tentacled extraterrestrial archaeologist recover stolen research notes on the mysterious Mississippian culture. (All in a day’s work, as any public-service librarian will attest.) Between the cast of intellectual-freedom fighters and the hissing forces of ignorance, Alexander leaves no doubt about which side to cheer for. Lenora, the Director, and his daughter present white; several other members of the human cast are people of color, indicated by name or description.
Further proof that librarians are mighty in all universes. Any questions? (Fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-16919-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A winning blend of comedy, superheroics, inspirational women from history, and puzzle-solving.
The puzzle-solving kid superheroes from Cape (2019) team up with real-life World War II heroines.
Josie and her friends Mae and Akiko have secret identities: the Emerald Shield, the Violet Vortex, and the Orange Inferno. The three comics-loving girls now have superpowers and a superhero mentor, but the war is still endangering them all. Now Akiko’s mom has gone missing from the Manzanar internment camp, but they don’t have time to focus on that. San Francisco’s being attacked by Side-Splitter and his army of evil clown clones. Pitch-perfect action scenes right out of golden-age comics—“Curses on you, Infinite Irritants!” wails Side-Splitter, as his red-nosed, floppy-shoed clowns attack—are complemented by sequences illustrated in comics-panel form. As white, Irish American Josie, African American Mae, and Japanese American Akiko receive help from some of the war’s real-life female cryptographers and spies, they solve numerous puzzles, including Morse code, acrostics, and a cryptic message that reads “∞ ∆ |^^| ≈ |º|.” Most of the puzzles are presented with enough information to be cracked by interested readers, as well. Historical racism and segregation are absent except for the internment camps, but the contrast between the injustice of the internment camps and the patriotic sacrifice of the deported internees is front and center.
A winning blend of comedy, superheroics, inspirational women from history, and puzzle-solving. (historical note) (Historical fantasy. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3914-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 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.
