Fast-paced and funny with brief but crucial hiccups of legal learning.
In a narrative laced with lighthearted and self-deprecating humor, 14-year-old Cyril MacIntyre relates a crime story disguised as a lesson in legal terminology.
Cyril’s young, tough-talking single mother, Andy, incorporates Cyril into everything she does, including taking him to law school when he was 10 and installing him as receptionist for the two-woman law firm she lands at. When Byron Cuvelier, a one-handed man who shares a mysterious past with Andy, shows up and moves in with them, it’s clearly blackmail as far as Cyril is concerned. So when Andy disappears, that naturally sets Cyril to sleuthing, and his secondhand legal training is just part of what he needs to unravel the case. (Each chapter is introduced by a legal term that sets up the action.) The story is set in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Cyril, Andy, and Byron are white, while Andy’s lawyer mentor is South Asian, and many among their clientele are minorities. The characters are not as simplistic as they initially seem, as first impressions are peeled away. Despite Cyril’s tough talk, the narrative is clearly intended for an audience that will expect and enjoy the rosy ending indicated by the confident tone throughout. (Amusingly, Andy’s cusswords are bleeped in the dialogue.) While the satisfying denouement doesn’t make complete sense in terms of the characters, it is completely in sync with the mood.
Fast-paced and funny with brief but crucial hiccups of legal learning. (Mystery. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1931-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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