This superlative family drama boasts a first-rate cast and paranormal touches.
In Starace’s debut YA novel, a teen uses his special ability to give others the courage they need.
For years, 16-year-old Adam Decker has stayed mum about his scary dreams, in which he seems to inhabit someone else’s body and become a voice inside their head. The scariest part is the way these dreams seem so real; when he guides a boy out of a burning building, the story makes the newspaper the next day. He finally confides in members of his extended family, who own an apple orchard in New York. It turns out Adam has a gift: He is psychically connecting to actual people experiencing fear and helping them to “do something heroic.” The situation may be as serious as a car crash or as prosaic as a girl suffering bullies at school. If he really tries, Adam can dream about a specific person—like a kid who’s recently gone missing. The author’s well-developed cast is this paranormal tale’s brightest light. Adam struggles with knowing how to help, since he can’t instantly fix problems through his psychic dreams; sometimes, he can’t do anything. He’s surrounded by vibrant characters with their own engrossing subplots: Adam’s cousin/best friend/roommate, Chris, is questioning his sexuality, and Adam’s older sister, Ellen, eyes a college that their parents may feel is too far from home. The story treats the psychic ability with subtlety, almost as if Adam gets mere glimpses into others' lives. Further details, however, prove riveting, as Adam learns he’s not the only gifted one and that his ability has the potential to harm him. Starace’s simple prose complements the brisk narrative, and Adam’s love of cinema gives him the perfect excuse to habitually cite older films most readers his age won’t know (“Did you ever see the original movie Night of the Living Dead? The one from the 60s? It’s in black and white and it’s scary as hell”).
This superlative family drama boasts a first-rate cast and paranormal touches.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 9781737918905
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Fiddler's Bridge Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes.
The Plague has left a population divided between Elites and Ordinaries—those who have powers and those who don’t; now, an Ordinary teen fights for her life.
Paedyn Gray witnessed the king kill her father five years ago, and she’s been thieving and sleeping rough ever since, all while faking Psychic abilities. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. Kai’s duties as the future Enforcer include eradicating any remaining Ordinaries, and these Trials are his chance to prove that he’s internalized his brutal training. But Kai can’t help but find Pae’s blue eyes, silver hair, and unabashed attitude enchanting. She likewise struggles to resist his stormy gray eyes, dark hair, and rakish behavior, even as they’re pitted against each other in the Trials and by the king himself. Scenes and concepts that are strongly reminiscent of the Hunger Games fall flat: They aren’t bolstered by the original’s heart or worldbuilding logic that would have justified a few extreme story elements. Illogical leaps and inconsistent characterizations abound, with lighthearted romantic interludes juxtaposed against genocide, child abuse, and sadism. These elements, which are not sufficiently addressed, combined with the use of ableist language, cannot be erased by any amount of romantic banter. Main characters are cued white; the supporting cast has some brown-skinned characters.
A lackluster and sometimes disturbing mishmash of overused tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9798987380406
Page Count: 538
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters.
Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener.
When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting” and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen.
An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593809860
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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