Fast-paced, entertaining, and exciting, with a fresh, believable voice.
In this YA thriller, a teenage girl investigates a conspiracy in her hometown when residents start acting brainwashed.
“I’ve known for some time that our family’s not normal,” says 17-year-old Sierra Mendez, from the small California town of Los Patos. Her father died when she was 6. Sierra’s mother, Lauren Woodard, is an organic farmer who believes in self-sufficiency, keeps hens and a goat, and proclaims that the town’s tap water is poison. When their rain barrel runs dry, Sierra must haul buckets of water from the nearby river—and that’s where, one morning, she discovers a floating corpse, only the first of increasingly sinister events. The body is that of Mr. Delmar, the water district manager, to whom Lauren wrote threatening letters; the new police chief, Capt. Leach, openly leers at Sierra and throws Lauren in a cell; and more and more town residents take on a glazed, stupefied look. It’s a conspiracy involving the town’s water, Sierra concludes. Her suspicions are stoked by TV channels that now all broadcast an infomercial containing subliminal messaging: “Watch TV…Don’t Ask Questions…Do Your Job…All is Well.” Worse still, zombified people are being replaced by androids. Escape from Los Patos is impossible, so Sierra and a few friends must hatch a bold plan to attack the conspiracy at its source. Kaptanoglu (Dreadmarrow Thief, 2017) writes an engaging, often humorous tale that includes romance, teamwork, heroism, some tragedy, and a little paranoia along with a likable, smart, and cool cast. They’re racially and culturally diverse; for example, popular soccer star Myles has two dads and is Asian Caucasian. (Though this would seem to indicate generally progressive politics, the town “voted for Trump.”) Many plot elements have a comic element, but the story also affords much opportunity for personal development, like Sierra’s unresolved guilty feelings over some childish misbehavior that indirectly catalyzed her father’s deportation to, and death in, El Salvador. The adventure moves along rapidly with plenty of action while saving a few surprises for the end.
Fast-paced, entertaining, and exciting, with a fresh, believable voice.Pub Date: March 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-648-44714-6
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Leschenault Press
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
Hillenbrand takes license with the familiar song (the traditional words and music are reproduced at the end) to tell an enchanting story about baby animals picked up by the train and delivered to the children’s zoo. The full-color drawings are transportingly jolly, while the catchy refrain—“See the engine driver pull his little lever”—is certain to delight readers. Once the baby elephant, flamingo, panda, tiger, seal, and kangaroo are taken to the zoo by the train, the children—representing various ethnic backgrounds, and showing one small girl in a wheelchair—arrive. This is a happy book, filled with childhood exuberance. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201804-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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