Uneven but forgivable given how fast, easy and freaky it is.
When intrepid teen reporter Tom Harding wakes in a fog- and monster-filled nightmare version of his Southern California town, his only ways out are truth or death.
Through the central story of Tom’s waking in the warped version of his town and flashback interludes of the weeks immediately preceding the primary narrative, Klavan (If We Survive, 2013, etc.) allows readers to piece together a spiritual mystery concerning what has happened in the time between the stories. In the interludes, Tom exposes his school’s beloved championship football team’s steroid use, gaining him both enemies and the admiration of his childhood crush. In the immediate narrative, Tom must discover what’s happening before monsters kill him. The few other characters present adamantly give him conflicting advice—from the grave, in one case—through foreshadowed plot twists and betrayals. Fans of survival-horror video games will recognize story structures and motifs (cellphones, televisions and radios turning from innocuous to frightening); these techniques transfer well to the written medium. A memory-loss device is most effective in its first use but becomes tedious. The biggest weakness, however, comes in flat characters and virtuous Tom’s weak emotional arc. Luckily, the creepy atmosphere ebbs and flows, keeping a good rhythm up until the very end—a tidy, if slightly campy wrap-up.
Uneven but forgivable given how fast, easy and freaky it is. (Survival horror. 11-15)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59554-797-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A thrilling conclusion to a beautifully crafted, heart-stopping trilogy.
This is the moment teens Seth, Anaya, and Petra have both been anticipating and dreading ever since aliens called cryptogens began attempting to colonize the Earth: the chance to defend their planet.
In an earlier volume, Seth, Anaya, and Petra began growing physical characteristics that made them realize they were half alien. Seth has wings, Petra has a tail, and Anaya has fur. They also have the power of telepathy, which Anaya uses to converse with Terra, a cryptogen rebel looking for human allies who could help stop the invasion of Earth. Terra plans to use a virus stored in the three teens’ bodies to disarm the flyers, which are the winged aliens that are both masterminding the invasion and enslaving the other species of cryptogens known as swimmers and runners. But Terra and her allies can’t pull any of this off without the help of Anaya, Seth, and Petra. Although the trio is anxious about their abilities, they don’t have much of a choice—the entire human race is depending on them for salvation. Like its predecessors, this trilogy closer is fast-paced and well structured. Despite its post-apocalyptic setting, the story is fundamentally character driven, and it is incredibly satisfying to watch each protagonist overcome their inner battles within the context of the larger human-alien war. Main characters read as White.
A thrilling conclusion to a beautifully crafted, heart-stopping trilogy. (Science fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984894-80-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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