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<This is the first novel
in a projected trilogy.>
<Warning: Casual spoilers included.>
In a world of Remarkables (those with the Gift) and
Unremarkables (regular humans) who are typically unaware of Remarkables,
Nichole (Nic) Blake is a Manifestor. Manifestors are considered the most
powerful of all Remarkables. The Gift “is more powerful than magic. You see,
the Gift is an innate power that lives in us Manifestors. Magic, on the other
hand, is a corrupt form of the Gift. It’s hard to control and super
destructive. Also, magic in real life can only be performed with a wand, and the
magic in wands runs out after a while. We Manifestors don’t need wands” (p. 7).
Innate though the Gift is, it requires education; one must learn how to use it.
The easiest way is with “mojos and jujus,” mojos being born of good intentions
and jujus with bad.
Nic has
just turned 12 and being Remarkable has its perks, like when she receives a pet
hellhound pup for her birthday. What Nic really wants is to learn how to use
her Gift, but her dad (Calvin/Maxwell) is wary of teaching her. When Nic sneaks
out to meet up with her best friend, Joshua Paul Williams (JP), to greet their
favorite author, TJ Retro, revelations come to light. Like learning that her
favorite author is her dad’s best friend. What?! There are more shocking
revelations. She has a frightening and unexpected first encounter with her own
mother who calls her Alexis, and she bumps into an invisible boy who turns out
to be, Alex, her twin brother. Calvin is accused of stealing the Msaidizi,
and Nic is determined to clear his name. Together with JP and Alex, the three
youth will go on a quest to find it and hopefully avoid the Manowari,
the person destined to destroy the Remarkable world. Can they find it in time
to save Calvin from a devastating sentence? And will Nic’s emerging abilities
point to greatness of the wondrous or ruining kind?
Pun
intended, but this is a remarkable middle-grade debut from YA
author Thomas. She takes African American folklore and sobering history to
create a complex novel that is enthralling, numinous, inventive and funny. It
confronts fantasy tropes in a fresh, intrepid way. The text is rich with this
fantasy world melded into the contemporary one so seamlessly that it feels like
we could exist in this Jackson, Mississippi, too. I devoured this fast-reading
adventure with its standout characters and on point plot. It’s my newest
favorite middle-grade series. It simply dazzles!
P.S. Uhuru
is a Remarkable city, the one Nic would’ve grown up in.
P.P.S. Giftech is Gift-infused technology and
can only be purchased in Remarkable cities.
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