A lively and captivating teen paranormal ride.
High school students dabble in witchcraft in a race to break a deadly spell.
McKenna Brady is back from boarding school for winter break, having been expelled after unsuccessfully attempting to break Violet Simmons’ lethal curses. She now has just eight days to prevent Violet from killing her friend Mischa. Last fall, Violet predicted the deaths of their friends Olivia and Candace, with macabre details and accuracy during a game of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. Now Violet is giving tarot card readings in school, and McKenna believes her predictions are connected to the lunar calendar. Aarsen quickly picks up where Light as a Feather (2018) leaves off, with improved results: The story is gripping and fast-paced, with sharper dialogue and plenty of hair-raising spookiness mixed with high school tomfoolery. Readers will devour the juicy occult particulars as McKenna discovers that she is a medium and teams up with friends to use a divination pendulum, phases of the moon, and other Wiccan magick to try to stop Violet. There’s much to enjoy here, but the main premise, that McKenna and her friends must somehow force Violet to lie down and play Light as a Feather, Cold as Marble to break the spell, is flimsy enough that one hopes Aarsen uses her growing talents on new material. Most characters are assumed white.
A lively and captivating teen paranormal ride. (Horror. 13-16)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4431-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking.
Sixteen-year-old Mandy considers herself the anti-Starfire: Unlike her scantily clad superhero mother, she doesn’t have superpowers, can’t fly, and doesn’t even own a bathing suit.
Mandy dyes her hair and dresses in all black to further call out how different they are. Mandy’s best friend, Lincoln, whose parents were born in Vietnam, insightfully summarizes this rift as being down to an intergenerational divide that occurs whether parents and children come from different countries or different planets. Mandy tries to figure out what kind of future she wants for herself as she struggles with teenage insecurities and bullying, her relationship with her mom, and her budding friendship (or is it something more?) with her new class project partner, Claire. Yoshitani’s vibrant and colorful stylized illustrations beautifully meld the various iterations of Starfire and the Titans with the live-action versions of those characters. Together with Tamaki’s punchy writing, this coming-of-age story of identity, family, friendship, and saving the world is skillfully brought to life in a quick but nuanced read. These layers are most strongly displayed as the story draws parallels between cultural differences between the generations as evidenced in how the characters address bullying, body positivity, fatphobia, fetishization and sexualization, and feminism. This title addresses many important concepts briefly, but well, with great pacing, bold art, and concise and snappy dialogue. The cast is broadly diverse in both primary and secondary characters.
Equal parts entertaining and thought-provoking. (Graphic fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: July 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77950-126-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
In the end, it’s more liberating than oppressive, with bits of humor and a jubilant pageant takeover by beauty rebels to...
In a small Texas town, a confident fat girl confronts new challenges to her self-esteem.
At age 16, Willowdean—her mother calls her Dumplin’—has a good sense of herself. She’s uninterested in Mom’s raison d’être, the Clover City Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant, which annually takes over the town and Will’s own house. Mom won once and now runs the pageant, dieting to fit her old dress and pressuring Will to diet too. Will doesn’t. She mourns her beloved aunt Lucy, a second parent to her who died six months ago, and simmers with pleasure over a new, hot, sort-of-boyfriend. However, his touch makes Will panic with newfound insecurity. She loses him, loses her old best friend, gains new social-outsider buddies (a familiar trope)—and finds triumph somewhere amid Dolly Parton, drag queens, breaking pageant rules, and repairing relationships. The text refreshingly asserts that thinness is no requirement for doing and deserving good things, that weight loss isn’t a cure-all, and that dieting doesn’t work anyway. The plot arc, amazingly, avoids the all-too-common pitfall of having its fat protagonist lose weight. Unfortunately, Murphy loses her step and undermines her main point in the mournful, cringeworthy details of Lucy’s death and life, which are blamed on extreme fatness rather than unfairness.
In the end, it’s more liberating than oppressive, with bits of humor and a jubilant pageant takeover by beauty rebels to crown this unusual book about a fat character. (Fiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-232718-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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