A creative, if unevenly written, piece of new-adult escapism for devotees of the dark realms.
An 18-year-old battles paranormal fiends in Atwood’s all-action YA debut.
Kacey Alexander lives in Woodland Falls, a once-happy city, now taken over by Olympus Security and run as a criminal enterprise. On her 18th birthday, she inherits a mysterious chest from her mother. It’s been four years since Kacey’s mom died, and although she’s tried to follow in her parent’s adventurous footsteps, she certainly isn’t expecting what’s inside the chest: knives and an illustrated journal. Meanwhile, Kacey’s best friend, Aidan, owns up to his ability to wield magic powers (as well as his longtime crush on Kacey); and as a further birthday surprise, the journal reveals that Kacey was born with the powers of a Mage, which were suppressed while she was a child but now are about to come into full effect. Kacey is shocked by these discoveries, but she puts them aside long enough to go and celebrate her birthday—only to come face to fang with her first vampire and thrown headlong into the brutal, if sometimes-beautiful, world of magic-wielding Sentinels. Conflicts between characters flare up without warning and settle down just as abruptly; Kacey’s first-person narration evinces these mood shifts, but her use of generic similes (“glowing like the embers of a dying fire”; “his green eyes shone like emeralds”) will dishearten readers who thrive on more vigorous prose. Still, there’s much else to like in Atwood’s imaginings. The paranormal elements have been thought out in depth, and they could easily form the basis for a TV series in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There’s a likable supporting cast, each with a back story and narrative potential, while Kacey herself is a sassy but socially responsible high school graduate who banters as well as she fights. The book may particularly appeal to fans of graphic novels looking for something more substantive. Overall, Atwood shows an unwavering devotion to kick-ass action and taking a stand against corporate (and inhuman) bad guys.
A creative, if unevenly written, piece of new-adult escapism for devotees of the dark realms.Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61296-725-7
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
