The Vanishing Station

January 29, 2024
Ellickson delivers an ambitious, fast-paced fantasy crackling with complicated family dynamics and forbidden love in this simmering debut. Since her mother’s death, 18-year-old Ruby Santos and her father have been forced to rent out their beloved San Francisco home to pay off lingering medical debt. Ruby’s plans for art school are a distant memory, replaced by low-paying work and taking care of her alcohol dependent father, who experiences chronic pain. After receiving an ominous invitation to the wealthiest part of the city, she discovers that her father had been working as a magical courier for the Bartholomew family, an organized crime group that controls the enchanted portals on San Francisco’s BART line. To clear her father’s debts, Ruby takes over his contracted service to the Bartholomews, and scrambles to find footing in a dangerous underworld where subway knife fights span continents. Though the conclusion feels rushed, Ruby’s burgeoning connection with the Bartholomews’ heir—which develops through liberal references to contemporary art and poetry—is swoonworthy, and the story impresses in its sensitive portrayal of living with a loved one navigating health challenges. Ruby is Filipino and Irish American; the Bartholomews cue as white. Ages 12–up.

March 15, 2024
An 18-year-old Filipino American teen enters a life of magical crime to pay back her father's debts. Life has never been perfect for Ruby Santos and her father, Balboa, but things are truly desperate now. It's been two years since her mother died of cancer, and between repaying hospital bills, supporting relatives in the Philippines, and trying to get by in expensive San Francisco, Ruby and Balboa are stretched to their limits. Amid this hardship, Ruby discovers Balboa's big secret: He works for a crime family that uses magic portals within the BART public transit system to smuggle illegal goods. But Balboa's declining health and alcoholism have been getting him into trouble at work. Ruby's called in to answer for his debts--Balboa put their house up for collateral--and winds up offering to take over his position. This decision thrusts her into the dark underworld of the Bartholomew, "i.e., BART," criminal family, most of whom are white. She comes into the orbit of (and, despite her qualms about his work, starts falling for) handsome, aquamarine-eyed Montgomery Bartholomew, who's heir to the throne. A slow start may have readers wondering where this train is headed, but it sets up threads that pay off once Ruby's talent for magic and her growing closeness to Montgomery draw heat from those inside and outside the organization. The story wraps up neatly but leaves room for a sequel. An urban fantasy with an original premise. (Fantasy. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2024
Grades 9-12 Life has been a struggle for Ruby and her father since her mother passed away. One night, while rescuing her father from yet another drunken escapade, she inadvertently discovers his secret: to make ends meet, he has been working for a clandestine network of couriers, making and accepting illicit deliveries by "jumping" through portals that link train lines all across the world. Desperate to save her father and her home, Ruby decides to step in when he cannot fulfill his duties. Unfortunately, she finds out too late how dangerous and corrupting train-jumping can be. Fast-paced and exciting, Ruby's story pulls the reader into the fascinating world of train-jumping and doesn't relent. At its heart, this debut novel is about the bond shared between father and daughter, dreams pursued at any cost, and how legacies both burden and invigorate parent-child relationships. Ellickson is a proficient storyteller, whether by bringing the various locales Ruby visits to life or by pulling from her own background to expand the history Ruby's father carried from the Philippines to San Francisco.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2024

Gr 9 Up-Ruby, who is Filipino American, recently graduated high school and now spends her time painting. Not the paintings she'd love to create, but instead painting walls and ceilings with hundreds of strokes of eggshell white. All her friends have moved on with their lives, but she is stuck under a pile of bills from the cancer that killed her mother and a father who is drinking more and more. Ellickson captures the beauty of art and San Francisco with her lyrical passages and moving prose. Ruby takes a job "jumping" trains in a magical underworld where BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) comes alive in the pages of a magical and sometimes terrifying journey into a world of intrigue, danger, and a super hot, super unreachable, son of a woman called Em. The prose is reminiscent of the art Ruby sees everywhere: whirling shapes, depths of color. The plot is captivating and new: Ruby is searching for a path that will help her learn her art, while others in the city are searching for a way to tangle her in their web of lies and deception. Ruby has a clear sense of right and wrong and is not shy about sharing that with anyone, including some of the wealthiest people in San Francisco. Captivating until the very end, this novel will leave readers hoping there is another book in the works. VERDICT A must-have for teen libraries. Fans of espionage, romance, and magic will love this one.-Cathleen Ash

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