An action-packed adventure, a wealth of historical and cultural minutiae, and an engaging protagonist.
A historical novel set during the period of Kamehameha the Great’s battles to consolidate the Hawaiian Islands stars a fierce yet tenderhearted young warrior determined to bring security to his family.
It is 1790, and 17-year-old Kalani Moku Tana has been sent by his mother to Kona to live with his Aunt Lei. Here he is to attend Kamehameha’s Pa lua, a military training academy. He faces daunting challenges. His mother warned him: “The men in the school are chiefs. Unlike them, you cannot show ancestry to the gods. For this you will be tested, humiliated. Be strong. You must survive the training and become a koa” (warrior). Kalani’s father, captured during a battle, was sacrificed to the War God Ku. Gruesome human sacrifice had been brought to Hawaii by the Tahitians, who conquered the original settlers near the end of the first millennium A.D. On his first day at the academy, Kalani makes one fast friend, Moki, and one very dangerous enemy, Hauna. Kalani becomes skilled in the use of the Hawaiians’ primitive weaponry—slingshots, spears, and shark-toothed clubs and daggers. He also becomes entangled in a risky romantic liaison that will cost him dearly. The capture of the Western schooner Fair American presents a new opportunity for Kalani: He learns how to handle muskets and cannons. In this rip-roaring tale, Bill Fernandez (Hawaiian Rebellions, 2018, etc.) has done his research. His narrative is rich in small details of island life before the impact of Western civilization, such as keeping track of time by counting heartbeats. The numerous battle scenes are graphic, bloody, and riveting. And there is endless intrigue, as the islands’ various higher and lower chiefs (there are so many of them that readers are likely to have difficulty keeping them all straight) forge fluid alliances based on current opportunities or the chance to settle old grievances. The author’s wife, Judith Fernandez (Hawaiian Rebellions, 2018), contributes helpful hand-drawn maps of the islands, black-and-white photographs, and sketches. In addition, there’s a valuable upfront glossary of Hawaiian terminology used throughout the text.
An action-packed adventure, a wealth of historical and cultural minutiae, and an engaging protagonist.Pub Date: April 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9990326-7-1
Page Count: 387
Publisher: Makani Kai Media
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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