Despite intriguing themes, the delivery fizzles.
A teen uncovers dark truths behind his amazing home.
Barnabas Bopwright lives in the City with his mother and stepfather and goes to school with Deni Jiver, his girlfriend. Both are student journalists. After discovering a subway map with a mysterious, hidden Aqua Line, Barnabas mentions it during an interview with the mayor, turning his life upside down. Threatened by Mayor Tuppletaub and unsure whom to trust, Barnabas ends up traveling on the Aqua Line, taking a nightmarish ride outside the City to the mysterious Valley. There, he discovers the ugly truth beneath his utopian world: It’s kept running by Valley workers, and the natural environment is destroyed to provide fuel and supplies. When he uncovers a sinister plot against the City, Barnabas has to save his imperfect home. While the book’s pacing and mystery elements and the themes of adventure and friendship are gripping, Barnabas’ narration feels much younger than his 15 years, clashing with serious discussions of social inequity, environmental degradation, and consumerism. The depictions of distrustful—and untrustworthy—adults are heavy-handed, detracting from a potentially intriguing analysis of family and heritage. Conversations about religion, the importance of creativity, and the meaning of bravery add extra dimensions but are similarly simplified. Barnabas’ reflections on his sexuality provide a sweet, slow-burn awakening. Barnabas is assumed White; diversity in race and sexuality is present in the supporting cast, but at times these identities are framed in ways that feel othering.
Despite intriguing themes, the delivery fizzles. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63679-152-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli.
For two teenagers, a small town’s annual cautionary ritual becomes both a life- and a death-changing experience.
On the second Wednesday in June, every eighth grader in Amber Springs, Pennsylvania, gets a black shirt, the name and picture of a teen killed the previous year through reckless behavior—and the silent treatment from everyone in town. Like many of his classmates, shy, self-conscious Robbie “Worm” Tarnauer has been looking forward to Dead Wed as a day for cutting loose rather than sober reflection…until he finds himself talking to a strange girl or, as she would have it, “spectral maiden,” only he can see or touch. Becca Finch is as surprised and confused as Worm, only remembering losing control of her car on an icy slope that past Christmas Eve. But being (or having been, anyway) a more outgoing sort, she sees their encounter as a sign that she’s got a mission. What follows, in a long conversational ramble through town and beyond, is a day at once ordinary yet rich in discovery and self-discovery—not just for Worm, but for Becca too, with a climactic twist that leaves both ready, or readier, for whatever may come next. Spinelli shines at setting a tongue-in-cheek tone for a tale with serious underpinnings, and as in Stargirl (2000), readers will be swept into the relationship that develops between this adolescent odd couple. Characters follow a White default.
Characters to love, quips to snort at, insights to ponder: typical Spinelli. (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30667-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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