To crudely describe it in two words, The Call by Peadar O’Guilin is an Irish Hunger Games. It’s a story about folklore, surviving gruesome violence, young love, preparing for something traumatic, and what we are willing to trade for our lives. An engaging, fast-paced read, The Call is set in a modern day Ireland as it survives a large-scale attack from a people thought lost to history— the Sidhe, or fairies, who the ancient Irish exiled to The Grey Land, a parallel, hellish dimension, where they have been trapped, planning their revenge against the humans. That revenge comes in the form of The Call— each adolescent will at any random moment disappear out of thin air for three minutes and four seconds. They find themselves in The Grey Land, where hunting parties of Sidhe track them down, torture them, and turn them into grotesque shapes to fit their amusement. If they survive the hunt for a whole day, they return to the Many-Colored Land, or Ireland, though they are forever changed. Ours is a survival story: young Nessa, our protagonist, attends a training college preparing adolescents for The Call. She is disabled and, against everyone’s expectations, knows she must survive The Call. We watch her navigate friendships that could end at any moment, school bullies with a thirst for violence like the Sidhe, and a budding romance against all her best instincts.

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