Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé's THE HEIRS

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the digital ARC of Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s The Heirs. The book will be released on Tuesday! 

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímíd’s new book The Heirs struck me differently from her previous novels (Ace of Spades and Where Sleeping Girls Lie), offering fewer of the surreal, disorienting moments that both disorient and challenge the reader. The Heirs reminded me of nothing so much as The Umbrella Academy . . . with the speculative elements removed.

The novel alternates between one, current storyline that predominantly takes place over just a few days and flashbacks. The chapters also shift between the characters’ perspectives, with five siblings—Octavius the Maestro, Fola the Brain, Bilal the Olympian, Perdita the Artist, and Romeo the Failure—as the primary focus and occasional chapters dipping into other, secondary characters’ points of view.

These genius siblings were adopted by their father, Leontes Button, as part of an experiment to prove that nurture outweighs nature. Each of their areas of genius was chosen when they were toddlers who gravitated towards a symbol—a violin bow, for example, for Octavius. Then, Button poured his generous resources into relentless training and support that has resulted in their status as prodigies but also in some serious mental health issues.

Every year, Button holds an exclusive Prodigy Ball both to publicize his Button Method and to honor other prodigies. This year, during the tenth ball, which is held on a yacht, Leontes is murdered. His children—along with everyone else who attended—are the suspects.

The book rolled along quickly for me, and I was compelled to discover both the secrets that inhabited their pasts and, of course, the solution to the mystery of Leontes’s murderer. I did, however, yearn for a deeper consideration of the characters’ psychology, though the plot-centered nature of the book certainly kept my attention. I did feel that the conclusion of the book was a bit rushed, with several important developments occurring through exposition dumps rather than evolving naturally.

Overall, The Heirs was a solid read that will, I think, satisfy lovers of YA mystery.

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