A YA horror/SF Clownaggedon more direly traumatic in each installment—approach with caution.
Blume continues his YA SF saga in which trans teen Oliver Jariwala and his friends encounter unearthly clowns who aren’t very funny at all.
Oliver Jariwala’s mother, a scientist, vanished during a test of a “molecular transporter.” In her place there appeared Dindet, a unicellular entity whose species generally manifest themselves as types of clowns, including mimes and jesters (in the novel’s planet- and dimension-spanning cosmos, “Clown” is a legitimate life-form category). Dindet masqueraded as a “foreign” visiting student at Oliver’s school, but several classmates have learned the incredible truth. One of them, Douglass, is Oliver’s closest friend and secret crush. Douglass’ scientist father was complicit in Dindet’s capture and apparent death in a heartless lab experiment. Oliver is tormented, manipulated, and sexually degraded by Markus, a cruel senior at his school. Oliver is placed in the hands of psychologists and authorities after lashing out at a taunting Markus in a violent episode. Meanwhile, Douglass and others come to the realization that long-standing disappearances and other creepy stuff in their community signify that Dindet was not the only alien Clown at large. Readers of the previous books in the series already know that the other Clowns, unlike Dindet, are neither playful nor funny. In fact, the author prefaces the text with a long list of “triggering content” found in the story; the YA-skewed material becomes a near-nonstop horror show of young people being victimized by adults and/or taloned, tentacled monstrosities. Oliver’s gender and the ways kids and adults react are addressed now and again (“It didn’t used to be this way. We were all right. Boy’s were boys, girls were girls, men married women and then that stupid president got elected and now all of them think it’s completely fine to flaunt that shit out in public”), though this thread is overshadowed by the increasingly apocalyptic main attraction under this killer-Clown circus tent. A cliffhanger ending hits readers with even more shocking twists.
A YA horror/SF Clownaggedon more direly traumatic in each installment—approach with caution. (YA science fiction)Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781737946366
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Christen Marie Watson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
