The tepid, resolution-free ending beckons potential sequels.
Acclaimed for her fantasy, Carson now travels the Old West.
Fifteen-year-old Leah lives on a farm near Dahlonega, Georgia, a town built around an early gold rush. She and her parents keep secret the fact that she has a mysterious "gold sense": she can find gold the way diviners find water, and despite the shabbiness of their homestead, the family is hiding 3 pounds of gold dust. When her parents are murdered and the gold stolen, Leah suspects her only living relative, who threatens to use her talents for nefarious ends. Leah and her childhood friend, a half-Cherokee boy named Jefferson, run away and join a wagon train headed toward California's newly discovered gold. Leah's narration details the adventures of their journey with a disparate group of travelers who often come across as archetypes more than fully fledged characters. There's the racist who attacks peaceful Indians, the selfish man who overloads his wagon with luxury goods, the runaway slave, the clueless itinerant preacher—none drawn with enough depth to make him or her memorable. Leah dresses as a boy for half the journey, and the revelation of her gender is accepted too readily to seem historically accurate. Along with other minor historical gaffes, Carson can neither sustain the tension of Leah's parents' murders nor put Leah's magical powers to interesting use.
The tepid, resolution-free ending beckons potential sequels. (author’s note, dramatis personae) (Historical fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-224291-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes
A gripping thriller in dystopic future Los Angeles.
Fifteen-year-olds June and Day live completely different lives in the glorious Republic. June is rich and brilliant, the only candidate ever to get a perfect score in the Trials, and is destined for a glowing career in the military. She looks forward to the day when she can join up and fight the Republic’s treacherous enemies east of the Dakotas. Day, on the other hand, is an anonymous street rat, a slum child who failed his own Trial. He's also the Republic's most wanted criminal, prone to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. When tragedies strike both their families, the two brilliant teens are thrown into direct opposition. In alternating first-person narratives, Day and June experience coming-of-age adventures in the midst of spying, theft and daredevil combat. Their voices are distinct and richly drawn, from Day’s self-deprecating affection for others to June's Holmesian attention to detail. All the flavor of a post-apocalyptic setting—plagues, class warfare, maniacal soldiers—escalates to greater complexity while leaving space for further worldbuilding in the sequel.
This is no didactic near-future warning of present evils, but a cinematic adventure featuring endearing, compelling heroes . (Science fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25675-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK TO SCREEN
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