A sequel of sorts to the classic The Adventures of Pinocchio that never quite establishes its reason for being.
Leviant imagines a puppet brought to life in 19th-century Italy in this postmodern fairy tale.
You’ve heard of Pinocchio—but what about Tinocchia? Tinocchia is a puppetta—a girl puppet—carved from magical pine by the Italian Jewish woodworker Yossi, a friend of Pinocchio’s creator, Geppetto. Tinocchia’s name is a pun on the appellation of Geppetto’s famous puppet and the Hebrew word for baby, tinok. Yossi raises his magical puppetta to speak both Hebrew and Italian and to appreciate the wonders of nature. He teaches her to observe Jewish holidays such Purim and Hanukkah, though the menorah candles make the wooden girl rather uncomfortable. One day, while playing outside with her friend Table (who is a table), Tinocchia encounters another puppet like herself. “He was a bit older than me and somewhat taller. He had a perky face and a cute, longish, pointy nose.” When she asks him his name, he tells her he is Nipocchio…and his nose begins to grow. Here, finally, is the puppetta’s famous counterpart: Geppetto’s “son,” Pinocchio, the perfect friend for Tinocchia. Together they go on several adventures, encountering frogs, dogs, and giant fish and attending the Commedia del Arte and the famous Palio di Siena horse race. Along the way, Tinocchia auditions for and performs in the Purim play at her synagogue and has several encounters with Samael, the Angel of Death, who wants to take Tinocchia away to puppet heaven but proves amenable to negotiation. Will Tinocchia ever turn into a real girl, the way Pinocchio (or at least the fictional Pinocchio, from the storybook based on her new friend) does at the end of his journey? Does Tinocchia even want to be a real girl at all?
Leviant presents the book as a manuscript discovered in a library in Siena and translated from Italian. As a result, the story is augmented here and there with footnotes and metafictional devices—including a few that poke fun at author Carlo Collodi and his original The Adventures of Pinocchio novel. Puns abound, some of them wince-inducing (the forest Yossi takes Tinocchia to includes trees with names like the “carpentree,” the “artistree,” and the “poetree”). Though the story is conveyed in simple language, the author finds ways to inject larger ideas, such as this bit of puppet existentialism, voiced by Pinocchio following a viewing of Punch and Judy: “Even though Geppetto says we’re marionettes we’re not marionettes, for they’re manipulated by people and strings and we’re not. And we’re not hand-held puppets either, like Punch and Judy. You and me, Tinocchia, we’re unique. Nobody can tell us what to do.” Even so, it’s difficult to imagine contemporary children finding much delight in this episodic and highly ironic pastiche. Neither is it quite arch enough to captivate an older, literary audience. Occasional illustrations by Chefitz, Deerman, and Spero brighten the text, but they’re poorly formatted. The theme of Judaism is pronounced—the book contains the entirety of the Purim play script—but its placement is somewhat puzzling.
A sequel of sorts to the classic The Adventures of Pinocchio that never quite establishes its reason for being.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781604893540
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Livingston Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.
Using mystery and romance elements in a nonlinear narrative, SenLinYu’s debut is a doorstopper of a fantasy that follows a woman with missing memories as she navigates through a war-torn realm in search of herself.
Helena Marino is a talented young healer living in Paladia—the “Shining City”—who has been thrust into a brutal war against an all-powerful necromancer and his army of Undying, loyal henchmen with immortal bodies, and necrothralls, reanimated automatons. When Helena is awakened from stasis, a prisoner of the necromancer’s forces, she has no idea how long she has been incarcerated—or the status of the war. She soon finds herself a personal prisoner of Kaine Ferron, the High Necromancer’s “monster” psychopath who has sadistically killed hundreds for his master. Ordered to recover Helena’s buried memories by any means necessary, the two polar opposites—Helena and Kaine, healer and killer—end up discovering much more as they begin to understand each other through shared trauma. While necromancy is an oft-trod subject in fantasy novels, the author gives it a fresh feel—in large part because of their superb worldbuilding coupled with unforgettable imagery throughout: “[The necromancer] lay reclined upon a throne of bodies. Necrothralls, contorted and twisted together, their limbs transmuted and fused into a chair, moving in synchrony, rising and falling as they breathed in tandem, squeezing and releasing around him…[He] extended his decrepit right hand, overlarge with fingers jointed like spider legs.” Another noteworthy element is the complex dynamic between Helena and Kaine. To say that these two characters shared the gamut of intense emotions would be a vast understatement. Readers will come for the fantasy and stay for the romance.
Although the melodrama sometimes is a bit much, the superb worldbuilding and intricate plotline make this a must-read.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780593972700
Page Count: 1040
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.
A woman must undergo fearsome trials to free the imprisoned Titans of Greek myth in Owen’s fantasy novel, the second in a series.
Advancing from minor office clerk in the Order of Thieves to Queen of the Underworld, Lyra Keres’ star should be rising. But thanks to Cronos, King of the Titans, she and her longtime friend and fellow thief Boone have been ensnared in a new challenge beneath the earth: Hot on the heels of winning the twisted Crucible Games, Lyra—who has recently been granted goddess powers—finds herself trapped in Tartarus. Separated from her beloved Hades, she must liberate the fearsome Titans from seven Locks to restore the cosmic balance. As Lyra progresses through the Locks engineered by the Gods—each as tricky and lethal as the last—the pressure mounts as the Titans repeatedly remind her, “You will be our savior.” Rhea, the wife of Cronos, reveals that Lyra began this quest “a hundred and fifty years ago,” adding further devastation to the task at hand; the knowledge is helpful, but also painful, as Lyra reflects, “Suddenly, I don’t want to know that it’s real. Because then I have to contemplate how many times I might have ended up in Tartarus already.” As she materializes in and out of time pockets, Lyra sees Hades’ troubled childhood unfold and struggles not to intervene to save the man she loves. In this second entry in the author’s Crucible series, following The Games Gods Play (2024), Lyra’s cynical quips continue to make her an engaging protagonist. Her inner monologues are balanced with hope, love, and longing for Hades as she meets various versions of him. While resilient, Owen’s heroine is also vulnerable (“Was I his pawn in more ways than I ever realized?”). Her introspection effectively contrasts with the simmering rage and restraint in Hades’ chapters. The supporting Titans are given more depth than the traditional myths allow, weaving a knotty family fabric for the reader to navigate alongside Lyra.
An engrossing, action-packed sequel with a compelling cast.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781649378538
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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