The back story may not sink in but the romantic tension captivates
Debut author Faegen’s paranormal romance impels a celestial girl toward a dark paramour who embodies a purpose and a partner for all eternity.
Seeking her father’s killer, Sasha entertains the notion of joining a cultish secret society that mysteriously grants the wishes of initiates. It turns out renouncing God and pledging fealty to Eryx, a relation of the devil, is not in store for Sasha. In some inventive takes on the eternal good-versus-evil dichotomy, Sasha is part-angel, and Eryx has a troupe of brothers who nobly seek to thwart him, though they are also sons of Hell. Big, strong, long-haired and immortal, Jax is the brother who is fated to shack up with Sasha, should she forsake her mortality and enlist with the brothers in their mission. Much of what drives the story comes across as just plain arbitrary. Early on, Sasha’s mother is deported to Russia, and Sasha has to move to Colorado, where Jax lives, to reside with evil relations. It turns out Sasha is an adopted child with no clue who her real parents are, and by the time she agrees to sacrifice normalcy to join Jax forever, she has nothing to lose and no one to fall back on anyway. The dialogue partakes of an aggressively teen vernacular—"… major bummer that her aunt isn't just a lost soul, but a crazy-bitch lost soul"—but the narration seems to have a hard time finding its rhythm.
The back story may not sink in but the romantic tension captivates . (Paranormal romance. 14 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-60684-170-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Egmont USA
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Two Rio Grande Valley high schoolers flirt with cutting out early but find reasons to finish school in this purposeful but intense tale. For Beto, it’s a combination of pride, disinterest in school and a clash with his caring but harsh father that sends him stalking away to spend the night in a Dumpster. For Beto's longtime friend Jessy, it’s a strong desire to be an artist, plus the strain of hearing her father beating her mother and knowing that her turn will be coming up one of these nights, that drives her to head for the bus to San Antonio. Using a mix of tenses and all three persons, Saldaña lays out his characters’ thoughts and emotional landscapes in broad strokes—creating a third angle of view by adding Beto’s little brother Roelito, who works his nalgas off in school but shows early signs of an ominous anger, as another narrative voice. The action takes place over the course of a little more than 12 hours, neatly capturing the spontaneity of teen impulses. Teen readers chafing at the domestic bit will find food for thought here. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55885-607-3
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
“Death is a period / at the end of a sentence,” concludes Annaleah, the 16-year-old protagonist of Schutz’s captivating fictional follow-up to her verse memoir (I Don’t Want To Be Crazy, 2006). And much like the resolute finality fixed in that tiny dot, Annaleah spends a great deal of this free-verse novel stuck contemplating the harsh reality that her sometime boyfriend, Brian—a seemingly healthy, dark-haired, cloudy-blue–eyed 17-year-old—has just dropped dead on the basketball court. Reeling from both physical loss and lack of closure to the meaning of their clandestine relationship, Annaleah finds herself routinely visiting and addressing the deceased Brian, until a chance graveside encounter yields advice that finally begins to hit home: “Nothing grows here,” says Brian’s grandmother, “besides grass.” At first blush appearing to pull out all the melodramatic stops in classic teen fashion, these refreshingly spare lines tackle tough relational issues—intimacy, risk, abandonment—with aplomb, making for a moving tale that also effectively shows teens how life can go on. (Fiction/poetry. 14 & up)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 970-0-545-16911-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: PUSH/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
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