A thoughtful exploration of class consciousness, genetics, and politics that doesn’t lose track of the human story.
Three young adults negotiate sexuality in a science-fiction Ontario where the British Empire took a decidedly different path.
Helena, shy and practical, looks forward to marrying her best friend, August, after what she hopes will be a quiet, small-town debut. A surprise invitation to Toronto, where the queen herself will be visiting, upsets all her plans. Margaret, a visitor to Toronto from England, forms a bosom friendship with Helena but doesn’t reveal her secret: Margaret is Her Royal Highness, the Princess Victoria-Margaret, disguised heir to the throne. Helena has her own secret. When she enters her DNA into the Computer at the core of the Empire’s religion, it records her as having XY chromosomes. In an empire that believes genetic compatibility is holy and the Computer’s inspired by God, will being an intersex woman destroy Helena’s chance of happiness? Convenient coincidences and the teens’ own thoughtful choices come to the rescue. The worldbuilding, though clunky, fascinates. In this alternate history, Queen Victoria married her children outside of Europe’s royal houses. Brown-skinned Margaret, with kinky hair and epicanthic folds, has genes from “Hong Kong, Iraq, Zululand, and more besides.” This queer-friendly Canada is multiethnic (August is of Hong Kong, Chinese, and Irish heritage, while Helena is predominantly white); culturally, despite hijabs, kippot, and salwar kameez, it’s overwhelmingly Anglo-Canadian. Despite this bustle, the tale itself is a lovely, quiet coming-of-age.
A thoughtful exploration of class consciousness, genetics, and politics that doesn’t lose track of the human story. (author’s note) (Science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-99497-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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
Only marginally intriguing.
In a remote part of Utah, in a “temple of excellence,” the best of the best are recruited to nurture their talents.
Redemption Preparatory is a cross between the Vatican and a top-secret research facility: The school is rooted in Christian ideology (but very few students are Christian), Mass is compulsory, cameras capture everything, and “maintenance” workers carry Tasers. When talented poet Emma disappears, three students, distrusting of the school administration, launch their own investigation. Brilliant chemist Neesha believes Emma has run away to avoid taking the heat for the duo’s illegal drug enterprise. Her boyfriend, an athlete called Aiden, naturally wants to find her. Evan, a chess prodigy who relies on patterns and has difficulty processing social signals, believes he knows Emma better than anyone. While the school is an insidious character on its own and the big reveal is slightly psychologically disturbing, Evan’s positioning as a tragic hero with an uncertain fate—which is connected to his stalking of Emma (even before her disappearance)—is far more unsettling. The ’90s setting provides the backdrop for tongue-in-cheek technological references but doesn’t do anything for the plot. Student testimonials and voice-to-text transcripts punctuate the three-way third-person narration that alternates among Neesha, Evan, and Aiden. Emma, Aiden, and Evan are assumed to be white; Neesha is Indian. Students are from all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East.
Only marginally intriguing. (Mystery. 15-18)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-266203-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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