by Ashley Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 22, 2023
A thoroughly engaging, modern-day tale of self-discovery.
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In Taylor’s debut novel, a series of dire events leads a New Yorker to reexamine her life.
Tori Rose could use a night out. The 29-year-old woman likes her job at Walker Art House, but not her churlish boss, and her estranged husband is spitefully dragging out their divorce proceedings. She heads to a club with her British best friend, Leslie, and one of Leslie’s friends. Things take a frightening turn when Tori, suddenly woozy, gets separated from the other two women; all three later realize they were drugged by strangers, and, by sheer luck, narrowly avoided the clutches of human traffickers. Tori, understandably shaken by this close call, takes a closer look at her past and present. She realizes that she’s always been a people pleaser; she lived with an abusive mother, spent too long in a bad marriage, and now puts up with her boss’ perpetual cruelty: “I can’t feel like a passenger in my own life,” she says. So she decides to take her life back—confronting those who have or continue to hurt her and accepting that she deserves better. Taylor presents a multilayered protagonist in Tori, a Black woman who endures others’ racism and sexism; it’s also revealed that she can hold her own in physical confrontations. Despite the title, the kidnapping attempt is but one of a series of absorbing subplots in which Tori faces tough obstacles. As such, many characters are unsavory, though a few are kind, including her gay “work husband” Paris and her friend Aaliyah, who offers sage advice over the phone. Taylor is a skilled writer who provides dialogue that pops as well as spirited descriptive passages, as when Tori, in a pre-dawn city, “nodded at the boys throwing stacks of newspaper from the back of a graffiti-laden truck and the group of crackheads stumbling to their den.”
A thoroughly engaging, modern-day tale of self-discovery.Pub Date: March 22, 2023
ISBN: 9798985532920
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
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The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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