An impressive and eerie debut that will keep readers looking over their shoulders.
It’s 1885, and runaway twins join a traveling group of mediums after fleeing their extremist minister father to avoid being placed in an asylum.
Seventeen-year-old Edie and Violet Bond were born identical with green eyes and auburn hair, but over time, Edie’s hair has become nearly white. Their mother died under mysterious circumstances a year ago, and each sister has some of her innate spiritual abilities: Edie is able to cross the Veil between life and death, while Violet channels spirits. Mr. Huddle, the head of their traveling group of Spiritualists, has them performing in Sacramento, California, where the woman who organized the Women’s Suffrage Association is causing a stir by fighting for equality. Misogyny abounds as women are being locked up in asylums for baseless reasons by their “male guardians”—fathers, husbands, or brothers. Edie displays delightful moxie, performing trance lectures on stage and using this platform to preach equality under the guise of channeling Benjamin Franklin and other male thinkers. When the father they escaped turns up in an unexpected place, the sisters uncover horrible truths. The atmospheric and haunting tone feels ominous as the twins encounter things they can’t quite explain, while the plot intensifies as Edie holds back secrets from Violet that could have devastating consequences. The timely, gripping themes of sisterhood and fighting misogyny will resonate. Characters default to White.
An impressive and eerie debut that will keep readers looking over their shoulders. (author’s note) (Paranormal thriller. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4549-4678-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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