A decidedly unspunky heroine quails her way past terrors real and imaginary in a quest to save her sister's life. Addie, the younger of the two eponymous princesses, watches as her sister Meryl practices for a life of swordplay and derring-do; she herself would much rather sit quietly and do her needlework. But when Meryl falls ill with the incurable Gray Death, Addie steels herself to find a cure, venturing forth to encounter specters, dragons, ogres, and—almost the worst of all—spiders. She is aided by an assortment of magical items and periodic visits from Rhys, her father's sorcerer. Punctuated by excerpts from Drualt, Bamarre's epic poem, the text clearly aims at Tolkienesque high fantasy, complete with a tantalizingly unfulfilled prophecy regarding the cure for the Gray Death. But Levine's (The Wish, 2000, etc.) strength lies in character development and world-making, not in epic plot construction. Addie is a refreshingly timid quester whose unabashed love for embroidery sets her apart from the hordes of plucky heroines who have gone before. The attributes of the various non-human creatures that populate her world are well-defined—especially the sorcerers, magical beings who live 500 years and only very rarely marry humans—and her prolonged "visit" with a delightfully evil dragon is quite wonderful. These elements are not enough to elevate a plot that moves unevenly from adventure to adventure, involving multiple convenient rescues, a predictable romance, and an ultimately unsatisfying deus ex machina at the end. Does this matter? Levine's popularity and a publicity juggernaut virtually ensure this book's success, despite its flaws. (Fiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: May 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-029315-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when...
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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