A stellar example of how the horror genre can embody authentic emotional experiences.
There are ghosts in the woods…but they’re not the worst things out there.
Their mother, who struggled with addiction, has skipped town, so 17-year-old Riley Walcott lives on the edge of Voynich Woods with her 10-year-old sister, Sam, and their uncle. Uncle Toby makes a living giving tours of the woods to tourists who are morbidly interested in the many people who have disappeared there. One day, Sam wanders off during a tour, looking for the Wishing Tree, another one of the woods’ mysteries. Riley follows to keep an eye on her but ends up getting lost herself. She stumbles across the elusive Wishing Tree—and is promptly murdered by people in masks. Shortly after, Madelyn, who lives in the woods with her abusive witch mother, revives Riley with her own magic. But—at Riley’s own invitation—something attached itself to her before she came back to life. As events bring the two girls closer together, they each seek an escape—Riley from being another Voynich Woods mystery and Madelyn from her power-hungry mother. Cipri’s young adult debut is a coming-of-age tale that’s dripping with dark magic, steeped in mother-child trauma, and brimming with feminine power. Readers get a strong sense of place and characters from the text, which candidly reveals the two protagonists’ complicated inner emotional lives. Even the more outrageously fantastical elements fit naturally into this world. Characters largely present white.
A stellar example of how the horror genre can embody authentic emotional experiences. (Horror. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781250791405
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging
Audrey Rose Wadsworth, 17, would rather perform autopsies in her uncle’s dark laboratory than find a suitable husband, as is the socially acceptable rite of passage for a young, white British lady in the late 1800s.
The story immediately brings Audrey into a fractious pairing with her uncle’s young assistant, Thomas Cresswell. The two engage in predictable rounds of “I’m smarter than you are” banter, while Audrey’s older brother, Nathaniel, taunts her for being a girl out of her place. Horrific murders of prostitutes whose identities point to associations with the Wadsworth estate prompt Audrey to start her own investigation, with Thomas as her sidekick. Audrey’s narration is both ponderous and polemical, as she sees her pursuit of her goals and this investigation as part of a crusade for women. She declares that the slain aren’t merely prostitutes but “daughters and wives and mothers,” but she’s also made it a point to deny any alignment with the profiled victims: “I am not going as a prostitute. I am simply blending in.” Audrey also expresses a narrow view of her desired gender role, asserting that “I was determined to be both pretty and fierce,” as if to say that physical beauty and liking “girly” things are integral to feminism. The graphic descriptions of mutilated women don’t do much to speed the pace.
Perhaps a more genuinely enlightened protagonist would have made this debut more engaging . (Historical thriller. 15-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-27349-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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