Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb by Kirsten Miller
| Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb by Kirsten Miller | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
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| Summary: Continuing the Scooby Doo come Charlie's Angels theme, this second book in the Kiki Strike series is as smart and sassy as the first. It's an easy, fairly superficial read, but it's quirky and funny and very nicely done. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 384 | Date: August 2008 |
| Publisher: Bloomsbury | |
| ISBN: 0747589615 | |
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The Irregulars are Kiki, Oona, Ananka, Luz, Dee Dee and Betty. A group of girl scout rejects, they guard New York's Shadow City, a vast network of underground passages, used by criminals and man-eating rats. They're high-kicking, girl power action heroes, these friends, and their adventures are absolutely hair-raising. In this second book in the Kiki Strike series, the focus is on Oona, the most mysterious of the six. It turns out that Oona's father is Lester Liu, a notorious China Town gangster. What you might call an absent father, he suddenly shows an usual interest in his daughter. But why? And why won't Oona share her secret with the other Irregulars?
Continuing the Scooby Doo come Charlie's Angels theme, The Empress's Tomb is as smart and sassy as the first book in the series. The action is as fast and furious as any girl power fan could possibly desire and the tone is delightfully wry. Jokes come thick and fast - Don't dry a hamster in the microwave. Flip flops aren't appropriate cocktail party attire. Mayonnaise shouldn't come with a crust - and they're all perfectly pitched at a late tween, early teen audience. And this audience will love the life coaching at the end of each chapter, which offers advice on anything from summoning a poltergeist to crashing a party.
The characters all have genuine warmth and enough foibles to save them from unpleasantly cheesy interaction. They're spiky with one another at times, but you love them for it. It's an easy, fairly superficial read, but it's quirky and funny and very nicely done. I read its almost four hundred pages in just part of an evening and I think teens would rattle through it pretty much this quickly and with great enjoyment.
My thanks to the nice people at Bloomsbury for sending the book.
Fans of urban fantasy might also like the bitey-bitey vampirism of The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb by Kirsten Miller at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb by Kirsten Miller at Amazon.com.
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