Intense.
A sheltered New England teen exploited for her gift decides she wants to live a normal life—and in the process discovers the consequences.
Eighteen-year-old Portuguese-American Marlena is known as Marlena the Saint because of her unique ability to heal people through her touch. Her controlling mother determines what behaviors and clothing will maintain her holy reputation, but Marlena’s desire to know the world grows stronger than her fear of disappointing her mother, especially once she finds out that she is charging money for the healings. With help from a few allies, including her gay friend Helen, Marlena sets out to experience the forbidden: partying, wearing a bikini, having a cellphone. She falls in love and, through physical intimacy, learns comfort with the body she was taught to associate with shame. But her joy comes to a halt when she discovers that someone she loves is sick. Marlena tries to do penance so that the angry, punishing God she was taught to believe in will restore her gift. Marlena’s straightforward present-tense narration is disorienting at first but becomes hypnotic after a few chapters. Some readers will enjoy exploring large questions about God, faith, and the meaning of life alongside the confused, questioning protagonist. Some may bristle at the mixture of the profane and the sacred. Whether empathizing with her or annoyed with her overdone rebellion, readers will be left reflecting.
Intense. (Fiction. 16-18)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-266211-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take “till death do us part” as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel to The Scarlet Veil (2023).
Célie’s life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She’s been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can’t eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she’s become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what’s been broken—but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned.
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped. (Paranormal. 16-18)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063258808
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Plenty of heat but not enough substance to keep the fire burning.
A romantically entangled stepbrother and stepsister in Los Angeles navigate their tumultuous history and take their relationship to new levels in this translated title by an Argentinian author.
Nick and Noah are madly in love: Their mutual attraction is established as the book opens with Noah’s 18th birthday party, during which she and Nick have an explicitly described sexual encounter behind the pool house. This fiery scene sets the stage for twists and turns in the lovers’ journey, including a separation when Noah is forced to go on a monthlong mother-daughter European tour. But reminders of their pasts (chronicled in the 2023 series opener, My Fault) threaten to undermine their stability. Nick’s wealthy estranged mother makes an unfortunate appearance, while Noah is haunted by the trauma of her father’s violent death. The blend of everyday complications (jealousy, parental disapproval) with frothy visions of high-society life is at once lacking in subtlety and intimately irresistible. The series initially gained popularity on Wattpad, and the novel follows the episodic structure typical of works on that site; sensual encounters occur at reliable intervals. Still, the characters and their milieu feel formulaic, and the writing is stilted. The differences between the two—Nick is five years older and has an office job; Noah has just finished high school—makes their suffocatingly possessive relationship feel particularly squirm-worthy. Nick and Noah and their families read white.
Plenty of heat but not enough substance to keep the fire burning. (Romance. 16-18)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781728290768
Page Count: 450
Publisher: Bloom Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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