Her protagonist, Gideon (named for the biblical warrior who defeated an army with just 300 men), is given the power to fight, but it also comes with a rage that sometimes threatens to overwhelm him. How do you reconcile faith with being a soldier? is a question she poses. The simple narrative would cast Gideon as the avenging hero, trampling the demons who have invaded our present-day Earth with nefarious ends - but Rossi, whose “Under the Never Sky” trilogy was a New York Times best-seller, has more on her mind. Take Danville author Veronica Rossi’s “Riders” (Tor Teen, $17.99, 368 pages), the first of a duology that features a teenage boy who finds himself transformed (or transmogrified) into War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It’s off to the side, usually, tucked away in a corner - the young adult section in a bookstore doesn’t usually get a lot of respect.Īnd a cursory glance through the books and topics shows, not surprisingly, a lot of teen romance, although these days, they usually occur in unusual settings, outside the everyday routine of school and sports and jobs.īut writers are more than storytellers, and though grand themes may not announce themselves in YA books as loudly as they do in adult best-sellers, they’re definitely there - and they allow the better books in the category to punch above their weight.
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