A group of social-climbing high-school girls makes a deal with a demon in this sassy, easily digestible horror story.
After saving her little sister Kasey from demonic possession in Bad Girls Don't Die (2009), pink-haired, confident Alexis hopes her time battling fiends is over. When Kasey starts high school, however, she falls in with the Sunshine Club, a group of girls who turn out to be involved with the demon Aralt, and Alexis, hoping to protect her sister, joins the club herself. Although it takes some time for Alexis to realize she has become possessed, her condition is no secret from readers. The author effectively blends Alexis' take-charge, nonconformist personality with Aralt's aggressively sunny, obsessively image-conscious influence. Life becomes easier with Aralt's help: Alexis heals quickly from injuries, manipulates her suspicious boyfriend and attracts the attention of well-placed adults, some of them also Aralt's devotees. The tension comes from watching Alexis' demon-fighting resolve weaken and uncovering clues about the true cost of Aralt's seeming benevolence. A few nasty fat jokes undercut the novel's ostensible stance against looks-related bullying, and using a girl who walks with a cane to represent the most desperate of losers is tasteless and unnecessary.
Otherwise, a smooth and not-too-scary page-turner, with room in its conclusion for a third installment. (Supernatural thriller. 12 & up)Pub Date: June 14, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4231-3471-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
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An Irish teen grapples with past misdeeds and newfound ties to magic.
When 16-year-old Maeve discovers a deck of tarot cards stashed with a mixtape of moody indie music from 1990, she starts giving readings for her classmates at her all-girls private school. Though her shame over dumping her strange friend Lily during an attempt to climb the social ladder at St. Bernadette’s is still palpable, it doesn’t stop her from trying to use the tarot in her favor to further this goal. However, after speaking harsh words to Lily during a reading, Maeve is horrified when her former friend later disappears. As she struggles to understand the forces at play within her, classmate Fiona proves to be just the friend Maeve needs. Detailed, interesting characters carry this contemporary story of competing energy and curses. Woven delicately throughout are chillingly eerie depictions of the Housekeeper, a figure who shows up on an extra card in the deck, echoing the White Lady legend from Irish folklore. Even more disturbing is an organization of young people led by a homophobic but charismatic figurehead intent on provoking backlash against Ireland’s recent civil rights victories. Most characters are White; Fiona is biracial, with a Filipina mother and White Irish father. Roe, Maeve’s love interest and Lily’s sibling, is a bisexual, genderqueer person who is a target for intolerance in their small city of Kilbeg.
An immersive tale of brave, vulnerable teens facing threats both real and fantastic. (Paranormal. 14-18)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1394-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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Riveting, brutal and beautifully told.
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A devastating tale of greed and secrets springs from the summer that tore Cady’s life apart.
Cady Sinclair’s family uses its inherited wealth to ensure that each successive generation is blond, beautiful and powerful. Reunited each summer by the family patriarch on his private island, his three adult daughters and various grandchildren lead charmed, fairy-tale lives (an idea reinforced by the periodic inclusions of Cady’s reworkings of fairy tales to tell the Sinclair family story). But this is no sanitized, modern Disney fairy tale; this is Cinderella with her stepsisters’ slashed heels in bloody glass slippers. Cady’s fairy-tale retellings are dark, as is the personal tragedy that has led to her examination of the skeletons in the Sinclair castle’s closets; its rent turns out to be extracted in personal sacrifices. Brilliantly, Lockhart resists simply crucifying the Sinclairs, which might make the family’s foreshadowed tragedy predictable or even satisfying. Instead, she humanizes them (and their painful contradictions) by including nostalgic images that showcase the love shared among Cady, her two cousins closest in age, and Gat, the Heathcliff-esque figure she has always loved. Though increasingly disenchanted with the Sinclair legacy of self-absorption, the four believe family redemption is possible—if they have the courage to act. Their sincere hopes and foolish naïveté make the teens’ desperate, grand gesture all that much more tragic.
Riveting, brutal and beautifully told. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: May 13, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-74126-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Categories: TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES
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