A plot-heavy saga.
A Southern gothic about family secrets and a dead sister.
Nearly a year ago Cage Shaw fled after being spotted over the dead body of his girlfriend, Ro Cole. Ro’s artistic younger sister, Mae, still doesn’t know what really happened—though she suspects it was more than it appeared to be after finding an old family-heirloom journal that was most recently Ro’s. In it is such disturbing content as the “Ritual for a Raising,” other apparent spells, and cryptic notes, some written by Ro herself. Meanwhile, Cage wakes in a hospital with vague memories of a motorcycle crash and makes his way back to the decaying Cole home, Blue Gate, where he’s shocked to learn that a year has passed, Ro is dead, and he is a pariah. He says he’s innocent, and Mae finds herself believing him. In between Mae’s investigation of Ro’s secrets and Cage’s attempts to figure out what’s happened over the past year, the text jumps back into Cole family history, to 1859, when Grady Cole falls for a magic-using outsider with the ability to raise the dead. The modern-time romance is light, as both of Mae’s potential love interests are hung up on Ro, and the setting—the derelict estate on the Alabama coast—suits the creepy, ritualistic, magical elements of a plot that confuses at times but mostly weaves together by the ending twists. All characters are white.
A plot-heavy saga. (Paranormal romance. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1476-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A charming cozy fantasy about defying expectations and finding love.
The lives of two Los Angeles girls inhabiting different universes intersect, proving that love knows no bounds.
Brenda Nguyen has a 19-step plan to save the world. Kat Woo is haunted by her legacy as the chosen one, a role she has no interest in. Brenda, working on an environmental science college scholarship application, stumbles into Sammy’s Coffee and Pick-Me-Ups, which Kat’s family owns. As the girls get to know each other, Brenda at last finds someone who’ll listen to her detailed plans, while Kat discovers she has something to look forward to. The girls, who alternate narrating the story, must defy the odds as their worlds begin to collide. As well as being a love story, this is an exploration of familial expectations: Kat is trying to outrun them, while Brenda is driven to fulfill hers. The girls, who are of Chinese and Vietnamese descent, respectively, complement each other: Brenda learns to live in the present, and Kat begins to look to the future. While there are pixie swarms and mana surges, the action takes a back seat to characterization. Lee’s fully developed parallel worlds are alike in many ways, although in Kat’s, you can buy teleportation spells at Target. The cast is rounded out by solid portrayals of the girls’ friends and family, who are important to the plot.
A charming cozy fantasy about defying expectations and finding love. (author’s note, recommended reading) (Fantasy romance. 14-18)Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250778024
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues...
He’s in remission from the osteosarcoma that took one of his legs. She’s fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. Both know that their time is limited.
Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. She’s smart, snarky and 16; she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He asks her over, and they swap novels. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his—based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page. Green’s signature style shines: His carefully structured dialogue and razor-sharp characters brim with genuine intellect, humor and desire. He takes on Big Questions that might feel heavy-handed in the words of any other author: What do oblivion and living mean? Then he deftly parries them with humor: “My nostalgia is so extreme that I am capable of missing a swing my butt never actually touched.” Dog-earing of pages will no doubt ensue.
Green seamlessly bridges the gap between the present and the existential, and readers will need more than one box of tissues to make it through Hazel and Gus’ poignant journey. (Fiction. 15 & up)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-525-47881-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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