Delightfully heart-pounding, suspenseful, and campy horror.
A high school mascot runs amok.
Quinn Marcelo is the third-greatest Peaches the Parrot mascot ever to serve at private girls’ school Olivia Newton-John High. But her appearance during the homecoming halftime show—wearing a much-anticipated new costume and accompanied by a live parrot companion—is sabotaged, exposing her closely held secret identity. Soon after, a dead body falls from the ceiling, kicking off a string of bloody killings. Violence isn’t new to the touristy beach town of Ocean’s Reach, California: A year earlier, the community was rattled by the double murder of a science teacher and the woman he was having an affair with. As Quinn investigates, she teams up with Tessa, who was also her first crush and whose clout as a cheerleader and senior class president contrast with Quinn’s status as “an anonymous, useless nobody.” The girls, who both have one white parent, originally met while attending Filipino parties with their families. Thoughtful social commentary about race and the justice system is baked into this entertainingly absurd, page-turning slasher, which expertly balances several complex mysteries with humor and camp. The well-drawn characters get involved in situations that lead to wacky but believable twists. Transcripts from the true-crime podcast of Justice Hope (Quinn’s best friend, with whom she had a fling she now regrets) and short, sardonic notes from the killer are interspersed among Tessa’s and Quinn’s alternating chapters, providing additional depth and intrigue.
Delightfully heart-pounding, suspenseful, and campy horror. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9798890030702
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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