Visceral and vindicating.
One by one, the students of Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium for Veil-sick girls disappear, but their spirits remain, trapped and screaming—“HELP US.”
To escape a future of marriage and childbirth, 16-year-old transgender boy Silas needs a medium’s seal from the Royal Speaker Society, a mark granted exclusively to men ever since the Speaker Act of 1841 prohibited women from practicing spirit-work. With a seal as proof of his manhood, Silas can go wherever he wants, including medical school. When Silas is exposed after using a stolen identity to obtain a seal, he expects to hang for his crime. Instead, he’s forced into an engagement and attendance at Braxton’s, an institution that claims to cure girls afflicted with Veil sickness, “a sickness of the mind” said to afflict women who engage in spirit-work. Soon after his arrival, Silas learns that not only are the students subjected to abusive treatment, the ones who resist have been vanishing without a trace. Set in Victorian England, this paranormal alternate history follows an autistic protagonist in vivid first-person prose as he unravels the haunting secret of the missing students with the help of an unexpected partner who feels just as trapped as Silas does by societal rules. Flutters of romance and feelings of kinship offer moments of reprieve from the unflinching brutality of Silas’ reality. White wields prose like a scalpel, cutting deep and spilling guts with gruesome precision. The cast of characters is white.
Visceral and vindicating. (historical note) (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781682636114
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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
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