An engaging SF/paranormal romp around the clock in two time periods.
In this YA novel, a bewildered teenage newsboy in 1957 in New York state must venture to the future and try to destroy the secret of potentially dangerous time travel.
Connelly, a specialist in YA SF/horror, takes readers to the Hudson Valley for a time-travel caper with a premise similar to the author’s The Mansion (2020). Charlie Anderson, a newspaper delivery boy in cozy Chamberlain, New York, is left with an extraordinary mission by a dying customer, Mr. Grazione. The older man was part of a government team investigating a mineral element called “chronotine” that enables time travel. Mr. Grazione, determining chronotine to be a threat in humankind’s clumsy hands, concealed the existing supply—where else?—in the future, in 1984. Now, Charlie’s mission is to use the scientist’s remaining time-travel technology, teleport to tomorrow, destroy the chronotine rock, and return. Charlie must keep the amazing secret from his peers and widowed mom. Making the assignment more problematic is a deadly duo of adult pursuers, “the Travelers,” who also covet the chronotine. In roughly alternating story threads, the author parallels adolescent life in 1957 (mostly in Charlie’s first-person narrative) with the Chamberlain of 1984 (in the third person), introducing readers to another set of kids and, in particular, to David Kellerman, a horror movie / science fiction lover and frequenter of video-game arcades. Back in 1957, Charlie has a horror movie / SF lover friend named Henry Kellerman. Coincidence? The tale is a bit of a Back to the Future affair, with nostalgic looks at two bygone eras, and much affection (reminiscent of the TV show Stranger Things) for an ’80s heyday when VHS and VCRs walked the planet. “Looks like a brick,” one character dismissively sums up a videocassette from the future. It’s no surprise that Connelly is a movie scholar on the side—he’s the author of Cinema of Confinement (2019)—who name-checks favored creature features. If readers compare the novel to a Hollywood film on the topic of time warps and paradoxes, Frequency (2000) may come to mind. While there’s nothing exceptionally groundbreaking here (except when the ground literally gets broken), the enjoyable story offers enough intrigue and soft peril to keep the pages turning, delivering a well-tuned read for the author’s YA audience.
An engaging SF/paranormal romp around the clock in two time periods.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring.
When Death-Cast doesn’t call, fate intertwines the lives of two boys, both haunted by their pasts and with futures they can’t escape.
In this third installment of the series that opened with 2017’s They Both Die at the End, Paz Dario waits every night for Death-Cast to call—as it should have for his father nearly 10 years ago, when Paz shot him to save his mother’s life. But the call never comes. Death-Cast killed Paz’s dreams of an acting career: No one will hire him now because the world sees him as a villain. When Paz tries (not for the first time) to put an end to his suffering, an unexpected encounter with Alano Rosa, the heir of Death-Cast, stops him. Both in a place of desperation, Alano and Paz sign a contract to live for Begin Days instead of waiting for their End Days. As suspenseful and emotionally wrenching as the previous titles in the series, this new installment explores heavy themes of abuse, mental health, self-harm, and suicide. Paz grapples with a recent diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Silvera surrounds Alano and Paz with a web of complex relationships. Although the protagonists fall fast for one another and form a deep connection over Alano’s desire to support Paz, Silvera emphasizes the importance of professional help. Both Alano and Paz have Puerto Rican heritage. The cliffhanger ending promises more to come.
Raw, delicate, and deeply caring. (content warning, resources) (Speculative fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780063240858
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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