A powerful, involving drama despite its lackluster conclusion.
A terrible secret transforms a young couple’s life.
Peyton was born in a small coal-mining town in West Virginia and grew up in squalor. His mother, Abigail, was only a teenager when he was born and meanders from one man to another searching for someone to save her. Early on, Peyton pines to improve their lot, his “heart aching under the weight of a responsibility he wasn’t sure it could bear.” He loses all faith and hope, a predicament poignantly depicted by Yearwood: “Peyton’s belief in God was one long string of empty lights. When he was young, the bulbs had emanated a strong glow, illuminating his path forward. Then the bulbs had exploded under the weight of his life, and his anger and fury, and patches of darkness appeared, the string gradually growing dimmer. Until one day, without him even noticing, it went dark.” He finally finds an opportunity when he wins a football scholarship to a swanky prep school in Cambridge and befriends its privileged attendees. He falls in love with Isabelle Woods—an artsy student from the world he aspires to join. However, a childish prank threatens all of his goals. Before graduation, Peyton and his friends, including Isabelle, light some fireworks and inadvertently set an apartment building aflame, killing four and injuring others. Peyton and Isabelle disagree about their obligations. She wants to confess to the crime, and he anxiously worries about the impact on his promising future. With great intelligence and sensitivity, the author limns the contest between them and the manner in which it discloses their different characters and backgrounds. The plot dawdles, however, challenging the reader’s attention, and the conclusion—an unfortunate finale that belies the book’s restraint as a whole—seems contrived. Still, overall, this is a thoughtful, affecting tale.
A powerful, involving drama despite its lackluster conclusion.Pub Date: July 4, 2022
ISBN: 979-8839283169
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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