Pleasant enough, for those who buy the concept of delving into an animal’s thought process.
A monkey goes on a journey to save the planet.
The novel is narrated by Beep, a squirrel monkey living in what we eventually learn is Costa Rica. We know from the beginning, however, that his troupe is aware of a world beyond its rainforest that contains other monkeys, and that a prophecy promises “a monkey one day will come along whose accidental courage will reunite us, even save the world.” That monkey turns out to be Beep in this good-natured fantasy, which launches when he leaves his troupe to find a mate. Shortly after, he meets up with Inga, an 11-year-old girl who befriends Beep when he tries to grab some pineapple from a table outside her family’s vacation home in Costa Rica. Soon he’s unwittingly in Inga’s “noopsook” on a “roarbird” bound for New York. Beep’s rendering of various “you-men” words is initially distracting, especially since his narration implausibly uses others like “tween” and “inanimate” with no problem. The language becomes less jarring and the pace picks up in NYC when Beep and Inga take a trip to the “Bronzoo.” An extended scene in which they evade the “Greenies” (aka guards) and start opening cages is well paced and exciting, with the tension ratcheted up as the police arrive and tranquilizer guns are deployed against the growing horde of freed animals. Roorbach depicts animals communicating across species, and a minority of humans led by Inga who can understand them, as a means to lead his plot toward a feel-good denouement. Not every reader will be charmed by Beep’s mannered voice or persuaded even fictionally by his odyssey, but Roorbach’s vision of a world despoiled by human waste and carelessness is grimly plausible, and his hope for a better future is no doubt shared by all.
Pleasant enough, for those who buy the concept of delving into an animal’s thought process.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781643755618
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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