Between the pacing and the heroes’ salty, blue language (full of lovingly creative, genital-inspired insults), reluctant...
Zombie virus? Check! Locked high school? Check!
Brian is a class-cutting, fence-hopping high school senior whose best friend, Chad, has a blue mohawk. They don’t fit in with the drama kids in seventh-period stagecraft class, which they take for the easy A. By the end of the period, a horrible, cannibalism-inducing virus has spread through the student body. The class barely manages to barricade part of the theater building—a setting Leveen uses to good effect. They use Brian’s smuggled cellphone to hear scant and ominous information from outside the school’s locked gate. Although Brian’s carved out temporary safety for their small group, Brian’s younger sister and his ex-girlfriend (with whom he might be on the verge of reuniting) are somewhere in the school. The diverse cast negotiates group management, plans rescue missions, and struggles to decide between waiting for a rescue that might not come or braving the killing field to try to climb the fence. Leveen keeps his story straightforward and fast-paced, with no padding but plenty of gore and deadly peril. It’s much faster than its zombie-peer novels but (aside from a slight spin on the virus’ workings) solidly performs in the genre instead of innovating.
Between the pacing and the heroes’ salty, blue language (full of lovingly creative, genital-inspired insults), reluctant readers who love zombies will devour it, right up to the abrupt end. (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0805-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
A powerful tale of found family and first love.
After a year away, Ellis returns home to confront her past.
Graduating from high school far from everything familiar was not part of Ellis Truman’s original plans, but she nevertheless ended up spending her senior year with her aunt in California. In Indiana, Ellis practically grew up with the Albrey family and their three tightknit sons, Dixon, Tucker, and Easton. Now, Tucker wants her to return home for matriarch Sandry Albrey’s 50th birthday celebration on the Fourth of July—but Ellis is dreading seeing Easton, as they haven’t talked since she left. Chapters alternate between past and present, and much of the story unravels slowly: How did she come to live with the Albreys? What caused Ellis to then end up in San Diego? What happened in her relationship with Easton? Patient readers will find the heartfelt tension pays off. With her father in and out of jail and an absent mother, socio-economic differences separating Ellis from the middle-class Albreys don’t go unnoticed, and Ellis’ down-to-earth journey shows how she unpacks her feelings about her relationship with her parents. The slow-build romance is swoonworthy, and young adult fans of Colleen Hoover seeking emotional devastation and unforgettable characters will find much to enjoy here. Characters read as White.
A powerful tale of found family and first love. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308853-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection.
Broken people, complicated families, magic, and Faerie politics: Black’s back.
After the tumultuous ending to the last volume (marriage, exile, and the seeming collapse of all her plots), Jude finds herself in the human world, which lacks appeal despite a childhood spent longing to go back. The price of her upbringing becomes clear: A human raised in the multihued, multiformed, always capricious Faerie High Court by the man who killed her parents, trained for intrigue and combat, recruited to a spy organization, and ultimately the power behind the coup and the latest High King, Jude no longer understands how to exist happily in a world that isn’t full of magic and danger. A plea from her estranged twin sends her secretly back to Faerie, where things immediately come to a boil with Cardan (king, nemesis, love interest) and all the many political strands Jude has tugged on for the past two volumes. New readers will need to go back to The Cruel Prince (2018) to follow the complexities—political and personal side plots abound—but the legions of established fans will love every minute of this lushly described, tightly plotted trilogy closer. Jude might be traumatized and emotionally unhealthy, but she’s an antihero worth cheering on. There are few physical descriptions of humans and some queer representation.
Whether you came for the lore or the love, perfection. (Fantasy. 14-adult)Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-31042-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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