A vampire tale with a heady mix of defiance and doubt, rebellion and romance.
A debut YA novel sees a strong-willed teenager struggle for freedom while developing feelings for her vampire master.
In a world now ruled by vampires, 18-year-old Wavorly Sterling has spent the last decade in Nightingale, a prison school where human children learn etiquette and grow strong enough to feed their masters. Most girls Wavorly’s age are happy. Her best friend, Savvy, for example, looks forward to a life of servitude. But Wavorly is the odd one out. She is one of the few humans born free, and would do anything to be so again. She tries to escape, souring her blood for the coming-of-age Distribution Ceremony. Worse, she speaks her mind. She rails against the five vampire rulers and she disrespects her master, Lord Anton Zein, even when he is merciful. Her behavior is tantamount to suicide. Zein should have her torn apart by the fallen—humans turned bestial by vampire bites. Instead, he not only accepts her into his blood harem, but also goes so far as to install her as his favorite. At first, Wavorly clings to her resentment. Soon, though, she starts to wonder: Are all vampires the monsters she supposed? Zein makes her feel special. For all that she loathes about her life, could she in turn feel something for him? While pairing vampires and romance—two rather tired bedfellows—Quick does so only after separating and reinvigorating each aspect and keeping them for some time in edgy proximity. Her portrayal of vampire society has depth and thought behind it. The romance is explored (rather cleverly) as something that’s not happening—more tantalizing potential than swooning inevitability. The writing is crisp and the story moves swiftly, incorporating its characterization and worldbuilding along the way rather than stopping to indulge in details. Wavorly is a strong character, unsure of what she wants but in no doubt over her right to choose. Mirroring this dichotomy, the clash of genres reveals (and is made stronger by) a searching exploration of rights: those of life and freedom. Teens and adults alike will lose themselves in the gray uncertainties and throbbing heartbeat of Wavorly’s existence.
A vampire tale with a heady mix of defiance and doubt, rebellion and romance.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73307-240-3
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2019
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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