Eight familiar folk and fairy tales retold with twists more ironic than grim. ``The Prince'' chases after glass-slippered Cinderella because he has a foot fetish; the foul-mouthed Queen's need to be Fairest One Of All is driven by a desire to distance herself from her wife-beating father (``A Taste For Beauty''); ``The Woodcutter's Wife'' denies any intent to eat Hansel and Gretelshe just wants to keep them around as sources of blood for potions and lab experiments. Other apparent villains turn out to be nothing of the sort: the misshapen little man in ``The Name'' is the queen's real father, and the giant that Jack eludes is dying of a wasting disease that can only be halted by human bone meal (``Blood and Bone''). In a distinctive, formal narration, Galloway disguises each story of her first collection, and expects readers to know the traditional versions well enough to fill in details of plot and character. She writes in a tone that darkens even tales with happy endings, but most of the violence is psychological rather than physical. Readers who appreciate Donna Jo Napoli's disturbing Magic Circle (1993) will find this equally thought- provoking, but William Brooke's lighthearted reinterpretations in A Telling Of The Tales (1990) and its sequels have more child appeal. (Short stories/folklore. 12-up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-32200-3
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped.
When the veil between life and death is torn, threatening everything and everyone she loves, Célie is determined to take “till death do us part” as a challenge, her role as Bride of Death notwithstanding, in this sequel to The Scarlet Veil (2023).
Célie’s life has very abruptly gone to hell in a handbasket. She’s been turned into a vampire and abandoned by the mysterious and infuriatingly alluring man who turned her. Fearful of hurting her friends, she can’t eat or sleep, and she loathes herself and what she’s become. Célie is also being haunted by her late sister, Filippa. The dead are walking, something is going wrong with magic, and Death himself has manifested in corporeal form to claim his due. Only Célie can mend what’s been broken—but at what cost? This sequel picks up without much time spent reorienting readers to plot points or character dynamics. As in the first book, the drama spools on for too long, only properly picking up momentum about two-thirds of the way through the book. What starts as a slow-burn romance soon becomes quite the opposite, and although the stakes are generally higher than before and there are some very touching moments, the narrative never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the worldbuilding and characters feel shallow and lack sufficient context. Most characters are light-skinned.
Intriguing but convoluted and underdeveloped. (Paranormal. 16-18)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063258808
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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