A strong continuation of a teen fantasy series that doesn’t shy away from life’s darker side.
In the second book of her YA paranormal fantasy series, Terrien (The Rampart Guards, 2016) pits her 14-year-old hero against the insidious forces of authoritarianism.
Over the last year, Jason Lex has already come to terms with a lot: the existence of cryptids on Earth (not-so-mythical creatures, such as Encantados and Yeti); his own newly discovered fire-wielding powers as a Rampart Guard; and his mother’s death after she turned evil and tried to destroy the world. It’s a lot to cope with, and just when Jason’s life seems as if it might be settling down, a new threat emerges from within the League of Governors, which regulates interactions between humans and cryptids. After following his father and sister from the United States to London, Jason is attacked by a man in a ski mask. When he wakes up, he’s in a strange hospital, run by members of a conspiracy that threatens not only to topple the League, but also to take away everyone Jason holds dear. Adult readers may initially find Terrien’s delivery lacking in weight, as her prose contains little description and little sense of place, and events unfold more with subsequence than consequence. The lack of emotional impact, however, is quite in keeping with its young-adult characters’ worldview. Jason sometimes appears to be naïve, but he is, in fact, merely trusting and unprejudiced. When he seems indifferent, he’s really just showing a 14-year-old’s distinct form of resilience. Jason is the only character who has a fully developed voice; he’s a disinterested, angst-y, yet clearsighted and determined teenager. The other characters blend into a homogeneous cast of not-Jasons—but that’s the point. As the story’s paranormal element remains largely in the background, Jason fights against the League’s oppressive demand for conformity. He carries the dual burdens of feeling powerless and responsible, and his struggle is the perfect metaphor for teenage isolation. The book is relatable on this fundamental level, and its creepy setting and end-of-chapter hooks will entice many YA readers.
A strong continuation of a teen fantasy series that doesn’t shy away from life’s darker side.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969031-4-1
Page Count: 431
Publisher: Camashea Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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