An origin story that will leave readers with more questions than answers.
This entry in Disney’s freshly reimagined backstories for signature villains follows Robin Benway’s The Wicked Ones (2023) with a look at Peter Pan’s archnemesis.
James and Marlene, English twins from a town on the North Sea, are close despite their differences in temperament. Shy, timid, methodical James dreams of higher education and life in London—not inheriting their father’s struggling fishing business. Outgoing, fearless, impulsive Marlene rejects the demure role their mother, nanny to a wealthy London family, cherishes for her. Swept out to sea on their 15th birthday, the twins surface on the beach of a tropical island, where Peter Pan rules a loyal band of fairies and the Lost Boys. Marlene’s thrilled with Never Land and fascinated by Peter, while James is increasingly anxious to leave before Never Land erases their memories of home. They clash over their next steps after discovering a rival band of Lost Boys, exiled by Peter following a failed coup, and the twins’ sibling bond continues to be tested. This intermittently entertaining tale suffers from jarring inconsistencies in James, its linchpin character, whose motivations and actions shift abruptly; lively Marlene is engaging, if underdeveloped. The generic historical English setting is vaguely fleshed out. While many of the Lost Boys seem to be younger than the twins, some sparse but pivotal violence that is not foreshadowed makes the book skew older. Most characters are cued white.
An origin story that will leave readers with more questions than answers. (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781368067157
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Disney Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play.
Garber returns to the world of bestseller Caraval (2017), this time with the focus on younger, more daring sister Donatella.
Valenda, capital of the empire, is host to the second of Legend’s magical games in a single year, and while Scarlett doesn’t want to play again, blonde Tella is eager for a chance to prove herself. She is haunted by the memory of her death in the last game and by the cursed Deck of Destiny she used as a child which foretold her loveless future. Garber has changed many of the rules of her expanding world, which now appears to be infused with magic and evil Fates. Despite a weak plot and ultraviolet prose (“He tasted like exquisite nightmares and stolen dreams, like the wings of fallen angels, and bottles of fresh moonlight.”), this is a tour de force of imagination. Themes of love, betrayal, and the price of magic (and desire) swirl like Caraval’s enchantments, and Dante’s sensuous kisses will thrill readers as much as they do Tella. The convoluted machinations of the Prince of Hearts (one of the Fates), Legend, and even the empress serve as the impetus for Tella’s story and set up future volumes which promise to go bigger. With descriptions focusing primarily on clothing, characters’ ethnicities are often indeterminate.
Dark, seductive, but over-the-top: Characters and book alike will enthrall those who choose to play. (glossary) (Fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-09531-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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