Fast-paced SF fun.
Changes abound when a girls’ school is moved to an all-boys campus.
After their alma mater was destroyed in Girl on Fire (2020), Tara, Misako, Kat, and Summer’s beloved School for Extraterrestrial Girls relocates to the isolated School for Extraterrestrial Boys. The quartet of alien friends now find themselves in a co-ed environment. Tara, who has the power to create fire, unpacks her complicated feelings for and history with winged roommate Misako (in the first book, Tara learned that her people nearly wiped out Misako’s). She also befriends troublemakers Evan and Ian, who are fairies like Misako. Like all students, Summer wears a watch that makes her appear human; when she meets a handsome boy, she fears showing him her true tentacled form. Meanwhile, observant Kat may have uncovered a conspiracy. Misako’s and Tara’s dual perspectives are delineated in light blue and green, respectively, and readers get a more character-driven approach in this follow-up. Those seeking high-octane action must be patient until nearly the cliffhanging conclusion, but the flashy final fight scene is worth the wait. With vividly hued illustrations from artist Noguchi, Whitley’s fizzy interstellar romp will leave readers buzzing for the next installment as he explores the girls’ dynamics both as a group and individually. In their human forms, Tara and Summer are brown-skinned, Misako is cued Asian, and Kat appears white.
Fast-paced SF fun. (Graphic science fiction. 10-16)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781545806951
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Papercutz
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Breathtaking dragon battles peppered with musings on forgiveness, teamwork, and love.
Lunar Jones joins other planetary guardians to unravel clues from Proteus and save the solar system in this third series entry.
Lunar, a 15-year-old dragoon, is known far and wide and regarded as a hero on Mars, but his personal life contains tension. He’s bonded for life with Dread, the savvy war strategist King-Dragon of Mars, but the Dread Knights are leaving one by one to pursue other opportunities. Though he’s unhappy about this, Lunar doesn’t try to hold them back. Sorting out his feelings for Rose Proctor is another can of worms. Plus he’s preparing for the upcoming Solar Summit, which is held by the planetary dragons once every 500 years. Reminiscent of a dragon family reunion, the summit includes equal measures of information exchange, camaraderie, and squabbles, but the appearance of a shape-shifting Fear Dragon brings everyone to laser-focused attention as they rally against a monstrous unseen enemy. Lunar’s first-person narration presents him variously as an awkward teen, pep-talking mentor, and battle-savvy commander. The dragon battles rock, innovations abound, and the Proteus messages tantalizingly reveal themselves right up until the cliffhanger ending. Names and skin tones cue some ethnic and racial diversity among the smart, strong teenage crew members surrounding the white-presenting Lunar. Knowledge of the previous books is essential to fully appreciate this volume, which explores characters and situations from earlier entries; a prologue introduces the formidable new characters Doom and Gloom.
Breathtaking dragon battles peppered with musings on forgiveness, teamwork, and love. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781665982016
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK TO SCREEN
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