Dark Metropolis

March 31, 2014
Dolamore’s urban fantasy introduces a city loosely based on culturally vibrant, politically repressive interwar Europe and plants a dark secret at its heart. The setting feels generically European; revolutionaries meet at the “Café Rouge,” and crowds flock to the “Lampenlight on Saturday night.” But the diabolical plot that entangles Thea, a 16-year-old trying to make ends meet as her mother slides into insanity; her best friend, serious and purposeful Nan; and Freddy, a magician who can revive the dead, shows substantial originality. As Freddy interacts with Thea, he discovers that his guardians are misusing his powers to enslave the dead. Meanwhile, Nan finds herself among his victims, stripped of her memories. She fights to keep her promise to rescue fellow prisoner Sigi as they navigate their complicated relationship. Dolamore (Magic Under Stone) brings the elements of her complex storyline together with flair, and an extended climax provides closure and reveals new sides to the characters—heroes, villains, and those somewhere in between all have strong motives. Though a sequel is planned, this installment stands alone. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

April 1, 2014
A decadent populace, a totalitarian state and a plague of vanishing people bring three young people into the heart of an anti-government plot. Thea just wants to keep her job at the Telephone Club, serving the wealthy glitterati. Her mother's losing her reason to bound-sickness, weakened by magically enhanced grief from the destruction of her illegal marriage bond to Thea's missing-in-action father. These days, it's all Thea can do to keep the two of them alive. Freddy is one of those wealthy Telephone Club patrons. By night, he woos Thea, who fascinates him; by day, he brings corpses back to life at the request of his guardians. Nan was once a Telephone Club waitress herself, but now, she's awakened--her memory magically damaged--surrounded by gray, unhappy laborers who insist she's dead. This postwar, Jazz Age-inflected, slightly steampunk magical world is revealed through the eyes of these three teens as they try to save all their world's victims, even those long since doomed. It's not clear why this government is so wicked--it feels as though the villains' dastardly behavior is more a matter of convenience than conviction. Whatever the cause, what can comic-book evil do in the face of three adolescent protagonists? There's a possibility of sequels in the chaotic, untidy conclusion. There's enough original worldbuilding in this comfortably familiar dystopian fantasy to keep readers going despite the gaps. (Fantasy. 12-15)

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May 1, 2014

Gr 7 Up-With her father missing and presumed dead and her mother becoming increasingly mentally unstable, 16-year-old Thea Holder must find work that will support the two of them. The waitressing job she finds at the Telephone Club introduces her to a mysterious boy, Freddy, and the sinister underworld with which he seems to be involved. When her best friend and co-worker, Nan, vanishes, the situation becomes increasingly perilous as Thea and Freddy discover that the city workers are literally dead men walking, kept alive through arcane magic. Reminiscent of Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis, this grim, pseudo magical world with hints of Jazz Age-esque features never completely comes together. Unfortunately, what could have been an interesting premise is marred by stilted dialogue and two-dimension paper doll-like characters. Two understated romances develop, including one between a zombie-turned-female photographer and an asexual fae teen who is willing to sacrifice herself for the cause. Teen readers would be better off reading Libba Bray's "Diviners" series (Little, Brown).-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK

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June 1, 2014
Grades 8-11 When Thea meets Freddy at the Telephone Club, where she works, she tells him she's trouble. The reverse might actually be true, when she finds out he speaks to and revives the dead, including her father, once thought killed in a bloody battle. Her mother and her best friend have disappeared, too, and Freddy has more to do with it than Thea expects. She works with him and the secret revolutionaries bent on freeing the recently revived and keeping them out from under the oppressive government's shady control. Thea loses and gains so much over the course of this original urban adventure that readers are sure to keep the pages turning. Dolamore builds an intriguing fantasy world, vaguely reminiscent of a war-ravaged twentieth-century Europe with the glitz of the Gilded Age, old-country magic, and an underground dystopian flair. Although the uptown time and place are a little hazy, and it takes a few chapters to get a whole picture of the city and its environs, the thrilling payoff is worth it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)