This tale moves beyond the boom-bang, boring theology of so many fantasies—and, in the process, creates, almost griotlike, a...
Taj, the black teenage narrator of Onyebuchi’s debut, is an aki, or sin-eater—meaning that he literally consumes the exorcised transgressions of others, usually in the forms of inky-colored animal-shaped phantasms called inisisas that reappear as black tattoos on the akis’ “red skin, brown skin.”
This really isn’t his most remarkable trait, however, even as he ingests greater and greater sins of the Kaya, the brown-skinned royal family ruling the land of Kos. What makes Taj extraordinary is the tensions he holds: his blasé awareness of his exalted status as the best aki, even as the townspeople both shun yet exploit him and his chosen family of sin-eaters; his adolescent swagger coupled with the big-brotherly protectiveness he has for the crew of akis and, as the story proceeds, his increasing responsibility to train them; his natural skepticism of the theology that guides Kos even as he performs the very act that allows the theology—and Kos itself—to exist. He must navigate these in the midst of a political plot, a burgeoning star-crossed love, and forgiveness for the sins he does not commit. “Epic” is an overused term to describe how magnificent someone or something is. Author Onyebuchi’s novel creates his in the good old-fashioned way: the slow, loving construction of the mundane and the miraculous, building a world that is both completely new and instantly recognizable.
This tale moves beyond the boom-bang, boring theology of so many fantasies—and, in the process, creates, almost griotlike, a paean to an emerging black legend . (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-448-49390-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Too slow to ramp up: Only committed series fans may stick with this one.
Readers return to the supernatural town of Hemlock Falls for more mysteries and monsters.
Winnie Wednesday’s story resumes soon after the events of The Luminaries (2022). Now a local celebrity, Winnie has the social approval she’s lacked for so long, but it doesn’t bring her any closer to solving new questions and mysteries. She’s still the only one who knows about the Whisperer, while everyone else is after a werewolf, but she can at least talk to her friend Mario about tracking the elusive nightmare. Winnie’s grief over a death in the prior novel leads to some creatively morbid turns of phrase, while Jay continues to drink and vape through his anguish. Clues and memories from Winnie’s missing father give her more leads to chase. Her renewed social and school lives are heavily dominated by her simmering relationship with Jay and his blindingly gorgeous abs. The familiar rising mist takes its time to appear, but once it does, dangerous magic and monsters are back in the mix. Watching Winnie doubt her status as a Luminary and repeatedly refer to her life as a “clusterfuck” could make readers impatient to see her kick some butt already. Winnie and Jay are cued white.
Too slow to ramp up: Only committed series fans may stick with this one. (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781250194145
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
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