A satisfying conclusion to a flawed but often fantastically entertaining trilogy.
In Kane’s (Prophecy, 2015, etc.) final installment of the Legacy trilogy, a teenage girl puts her life on the line to try to destroy a sinister company that produces powerful, mood-altering drugs.
It’s been 75 days since a secretive man named Quin McAllister left the San Francisco Bay Area and Lex Knightley’s life. Government authorities have instituted curfews and set up checkpoints to crack down on the consumption of “emotion-altering medications,” or EAMs. The newest, most dangerous EAM is Onyx, which causes aggressive behavior and has led to an explosion of gang violence on San Francisco’s foggy streets. Meanwhile, Lex has been hiding a fugitive Resistance leader-turned-drug czar named Augustus Porter, despite her hatred of him, as she hopes to obtain insider information that will help bring down EAM manufacturer Zenigenic and its ruthless, power-hungry CEO, Xander Steele. When Quin abruptly returns and teams up with Zenigenic as a spokesman for a new medication designed to make the world kinder, Lex knows there must be more to this strange alliance than meets the eye. Lex, with the help of some friends—including her intrepid reporter father and the somewhat untrustworthy Augustus—hopes to fulfill the wishes of her deceased mother, a Zenigenic psychiatrist who regretted her prominent role in the creation of EAMs. She plans to do so by solving the mystery and exposing the corporation’s dirty deeds once and for all. Kane throws readers right into the deep end without wasting any time recapping previous novels in the series. Fortunately, readers will likely find that her vividly detailed world and complex characters have lingered with them since Prophecy (2015). Lex has developed and matured a great deal since readers met her in Legacy (2014), though she still occasionally feels like a Mary Sue—a little too perfect to be real. The book is at its best when it focuses on the tragic psychological fallout from EAM usage, and at its worst when it focuses on Lex and Quin’s dull romance; they lack the spark to stand out from every other star-crossed dystopian duo. The book’s frenetic climax, set at the iconic Bay Bridge, will leave readers breathless and wanting more from Kane and her fictional world.
A satisfying conclusion to a flawed but often fantastically entertaining trilogy.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4575-4402-6
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
