A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy sequel that should make readers crave yet another visit to Nanosia.
A journeyman, ill-equipped to be the new fire mage, will need strength and skills to save an increasingly unstable world in this second installment of a YA series.
Now that his master is dead, apprentice Loby is the likely candidate to take the role of fire mage. But as he’s never learned the secret of fire, he doesn’t want the responsibility of being one of the five elemental mages. Meanwhile, citizens of the kingdom of Romatica are understandably on edge, as the land is burdened by recurrent earthquakes and unseasonably icy weather. In order for earth mage Myrlo to calm the “distressed” planet, he’ll need to make a volcano—but that would require a fire mage at full power. Loby may find the secret of fire in the atom-sized world of Nanosia, which is populated by the universe’s elementary particles. He’ll also be able to stop Romatica’s despicable King Cestor, who’s in Nanosia to collect the invincible powers an oracle has promised him. Luckily, Loby has help from Prenda, a girl who may share his hankering for romance, as well as Pyck, his half brother, who, after leaving six years ago, has inexplicably returned to Romatica. As in the fantasy series’ first installment, Johnson (Queen of the Quantum Realm, 2017, etc.) aptly incorporates science into her fictional tale. For example, Nanosia resident Higgy (as in the Higgs field), who plans to abandon his duty of providing mass to particles, could destroy the entire universe. But the author is a skilled storyteller in multiple aspects: Pyck is especially mysterious, as readers know he’s in Romatica on some sort of “mission.” Furthermore, some scenes play out twice, with alternating points of view. It masterfully adds character dimension: While Loby is indisputably sympathetic, Pyck’s perspective makes the protagonist’s plea for help almost sound like babbling (“The earthquake, the cold….See there’s this girl”). The narrative’s speedy pace, from the beginning to the satisfying conclusion, never falters.
A thoroughly enjoyable fantasy sequel that should make readers crave yet another visit to Nanosia.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-72288-862-6
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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