The gorgeous cover, highly original premise, and dramatic climax can’t make up for tedious pacing and a muddled message.
“Watch out for the blanks.”
Sixteen-year-old Leora takes her father’s dying words as a warning against those who refuse the sacred obligation to record every deed as observable tattoos, eventually to be bound and reverently preserved by their descendants. So the discrepancies between her father’s own “skin book” and her memories shake all of Leora’s comfortable assumptions. Broadway presents an intriguing dystopian conceit: an apparently benevolent society, completely transparent, valuing persons of every color equally (although it’s considered “lucky” and “refined” to be “pale” like Leora)—yet also riddled with bigotry, paranoia, and hypocrisy. Still, some of the ambiguities are just confusing: are the “blanks” individuals who are exercising free choice or an entirely separate race? Is Leora responsible for her own decisions, or is she a special, predestined savior? Leora’s present-tense narration slowly dribbles out trickles of plot amid torrents of mind-numbing exposition, studded with portentous dreams and twists on traditional folk tales. While her voice—naïve, vacillating, and constantly self-deprecating—can be irritating, it’s far less frustrating than the overused device in which characters inexcusably conceal vital information in order to drive events. As these deceptions finally crumble, Leora is provoked into a series of rash choices, culminating in a flamboyant gesture rejecting her entire social order…and neatly setting up a sequel.
The gorgeous cover, highly original premise, and dramatic climax can’t make up for tedious pacing and a muddled message. (Fantasy. 11-17)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-19699-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Intertwined spectral and real worlds deliver double the thrills.
Leaving his actual body behind in prison, Smoke can move through the world as a ghost in this fantastic yet real portrait of a survivor seeking answers.
John “Smoke” Conlan has survived a brutal beating from his father, a murder conviction, and prison life. His uncanny ability evidently triggered by the beating, Smoke exists inside and outside the fictional Greater Denver Youth Offender Rehabilitation Center (unrealistically represented as a maximum security prison). Smoke keeps his physical body protected on the inside thanks to the balance of favors earned outside his body. On one such errand, he discovers that a young waitress at a seedy dive can actually see him. Smoke’s vivid present-tense narration is filtered according to his concerns. He insists that he is innocent of killing his favorite teacher but guilty of killing a fellow student in self-defense, keeping readers teetering between a belief that the punishment is justified and cheering Smoke on to fight for freedom. The narrative’s romance is chaste, and it tempers the intensity brought to the story by the threats of guards, fellow inmates, and outside criminals. Though the complex plot is based on an impossible premise, readers will be flipping the pages, watching the diverse cast (Smoke is white) race toward the climax.
Intertwined spectral and real worlds deliver double the thrills. (Paranormal suspense. 11-16)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2597-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.
Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.
Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play. (glossary) (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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