A well-paced supernatural mystery that entertains but never quite explains.
“What about Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board? Have you guys ever played that?”
Grim fates were sealed the night the popular girls of Willow High gathered for Olivia Richmond’s 16th birthday sleepover. McKenna Brady, the story’s narrator, believes the creepy levitation game is nothing more than group hypnosis, but the mysterious newcomer to their school, Violet Simmons, unnerves the partygoers with a detailed story describing Olivia’s death as she returns from shoe shopping at the mall. McKenna has recently shed glasses, braces, and 20 pounds to discover a newfound “power of being pretty” after being bullied for her appearance. It was supposed to be a fabulous junior year, but while the girls get ready for the Fall Fling dance, Olivia heads out to the mall to find a perfect pair of shoes—and meets a gruesome death on her way home. Was it just a strange coincidence? Luckily, McKenna can turn to her handsome neighbor to hold her hand during the ghostly visitations she begins to experience and to figure out the mystery before tragedy strikes again. An irreverent mashup of mean, teen-queen comedy and supernatural ghost horror story, readers looking for light, spooky fun will enjoy the pace and romance, but others may find the characters superficially flat without any salvaging wit. Most characters are assumed white; some are indeterminate.
A well-paced supernatural mystery that entertains but never quite explains. (Horror. 13-16)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4402-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
“So here’s the thing about being Baker Acted,” opens narrator Kenna, referring to a real-life Florida law called the Baker...
Told in finely tuned free verse, this story about self-injury portrays an unusual root cause for cutting: peer pressure.
“So here’s the thing about being Baker Acted,” opens narrator Kenna, referring to a real-life Florida law called the Baker Act, which allows for involuntary psychiatric institutionalization for up to 72 hours. Kenna’s sent straight there when a friend catches her cutting herself in the school bathroom. Kenna’s steamed, because the girl who told on her is a cutter too, as is their whole social circle. Girls compare scars and slits, sharing tips for hiding pins and stealing blades. In what Kenna calls the Sisters of the Broken Glass, girls crowd around at lunch, “looking at my cuts, rubbing my shoulders, / dabbing me with I-feel-so-bad-for-you ointment.” Kenna has no single, specific inner trauma, only various (valid) unhappinesses; she feels like “just a copycutter. / A follower who did it to fit in. / And now I can’t stop.” Now she finds her scars “[p]retty as pink pearls” and craves the adrenaline: Cutting’s “like energy / moving through my body / in waves. // Rushing. / Cleansing.” Despite hipster references (John Green, Tony Hawk, Tumblr, Twitter), the simple characterizations could have made for a generic problem novel, but Kuderick’s keen diction and free-verse technique shine.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-230656-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
Deeply enmeshed with a magical world and its impossible choices before readers ever meet her, Ava and her wholly believable...
An indentured magical assassin just wants a little peace with her chosen family.
Firebug Ava, who can set fires with her mind, has been on the run her whole life. When Ava’s firebug mother became pregnant, she did the unthinkable and fled from the supernatural mob, raising Ava on the road for years, always in hiding. But nobody escapes the Coterie alive, and Ava’s mom was no exception. Orphaned, Ava lives with her mother’s human childhood sweetheart in rural Maine. She’s allowed to stay in Maine only on the condition of her loyalty to Venus, the Coterie’s bloodthirsty vampire leader. Along with her two best friends, also unwilling Coterie employees, Ava’s an unpaid assassin. Ava, Ezra, a werefox, and Lock, a handsome dryad, are Venus’ enforcers, putting down any supernaturals foolish enough to challenge Venus’ power. As long as Ava does the bloody work, she and her loved ones are left alone—but what happens when Venus demands something Ava simply won’t do? Ava’s exhausted despair, her love for her found family and her coldly practical choices are pre-existing conditions, and the moral decisions she makes are surprisingly nuanced.
Deeply enmeshed with a magical world and its impossible choices before readers ever meet her, Ava and her wholly believable despair are a refreshing change from the endless parade of naïve heroines found elsewhere . (Fantasy. 14-16)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9862-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
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