Here's a cool new review from The Horn Book, a trade review magazine that is super selective about what they review:
Sean Beaudoin Fade to Blue; illus. by Wilfred Santiago
201 pp. Little 8/09 isbn 978-0-316-01417-5 $16.99
(High School)
Pity the poor assigner of fiction subject headings. Sophie Blue, an artistic Goth teen in therapy, might be delusional or even another character and gender. She has lost her father, possibly to the clutches of evil scientists, or maybe to the “other woman,” who might be a deranged ex-nurse who also exists in graphic novel form. There is a vacuum repair shop in space (think Douglas Adams), a barrage of absurdist pop-culture send-ups (think Neal Shusterman), and some yodeling (think...original emerging voice in young adult fiction). As we attempt to solve a surprisingly gripping mystery, we proceed from chapter none to chapter twenty, take a brief comic-strip break, and then return from twenty to none. This funhouse mélange of action-adventure, romance, and dystopian science fiction also includes social commentary on such issues as the global economy, consumerism, and bio-engineering. Whizzing along, we become truly invested in Sophie and are relieved at the happy ending—or was that a happy beginning? s.e.
