A taut, emotionally arresting fantasy.
By day, Aissa and Zandria are hardworking citizens of the Technocrat city of Palinor; by night, they are Magi spies and assassins-in-training.
The twins scour the city for any remnants of their people’s former power. Their mission: to find and kill the Technocrat heir, a hidden child who is one of the Heartless—people born without a heart. Aro, an attractive young Technocrat researcher, tasks Aissa with helping find a cure for the Heartless, but not everything is as it seems: Old friends cannot be trusted, new emotions cannot be ignored. When Zandria is captured by the Technocrats, Aissa must weigh loyalty to her mission against her sister’s life and her own burgeoning love in the ultimate moral quandary. Each side views the other as unequivocally evil. Connolly, however, undermines these perceptions, depicting both underhanded Magi ploys and Technocrat compassion: a subtle take on the current expectation of moral ambiguity in fantasy. The book’s strengths lie in its well-crafted prose, worldbuilding, and richly drawn supporting characters; the leads, however, feel a bit more inaccessible. Emotionally repressed Aissa’s confidence in her intelligence and abilities approaches arrogance; the better-humored Zandria plays a much smaller role, and her absence in the latter half of the book goes almost unnoticed. The stakes, too, sometimes feel too low to drive the depth of the twins’ hatred. Main characters default to White; there is some diversity of skin tone in secondary characters.
A taut, emotionally arresting fantasy. (Fantasy. 13-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-310-76814-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Blink
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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