A spirited retelling of lesser-known tales.
Jewish mythology, Yiddish theater, and New York City history meet in the present day.
The Sender sisters, Molly and Clara, are surprisingly successful 18-year-old co-managers of a revived Yiddish theater on Second Avenue in Manhattan. That’s because they’re also more than a century old; Molly and Clara are Estries, undead women from Ashkenazi lore who turn into blood-drinking monsters and can fly around on owls’ wings. They’ve done a good job of keeping their true identities a secret, but of course, new love interests complicate everything. Molly’s girlfriend, Anat, gets possessed by a dybbuk who might have ties to Molly’s past. Clara would insist that she doesn’t have feelings for Boaz, their Syrian Jewish employee, but his ability to see the dead and his family’s possession of a magic ring turn everyone’s world upside down. The plot becomes a bit rudderless once the action picks up in the various storylines, circling around several loci but never quite making the stakes and motivations feel clear or urgent. Debut author Vishny’s writing is at times muddy but mostly unobtrusive and is most successful when re-creating scenes from older history. Overall, the story excels at taking relatively hidden aspects of Jewish history, contemporary community life, and bubbe meises (or fables) and making them feel fresh and vibrant.
A spirited retelling of lesser-known tales. (author’s note) (Paranormal. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780063327306
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
A spiritual, intriguing, though somewhat uneven take on life, grief, and healing.
A high school senior returns to her family home—after she’s been dead for years.
Forman’s ability to capture the voices of teens shines in this heart-wrenching story of Amber Crane’s life, death, and (sort of) undeath. Amber, who reads white, died seven years ago, but on this day just before graduation, she’s standing in her family home, seemingly alive. The first people to see Amber are her mother—who, clearly in shock, starts screaming—and her younger sister, Missy, who’s now a blue-haired teenager. Amber doesn’t even realize she’s supposed to be dead until Missy tells her so. And that’s when the work of trying to make sense of what Amber’s doing here kicks into gear. Told from myriad points of view—so many, one could get lost—the novel threads together the lives of people in Amber’s orbit (and even some who didn’t know her directly), incorporating current-day perspectives as well as ones from the past. The story even goes as far back as 29 years, to the day when Amber’s parents met. While some of the backstory feels extraneous, and the chapters written from adults’ perspectives feel less compelling than those of the teen lead, Forman continually returns to Amber’s point of view, grounding her as the heart of this story, a necessary device to keep readers invested in the enduring question: Why is she back?
A spiritual, intriguing, though somewhat uneven take on life, grief, and healing. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063346147
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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