Much longer than the first but just as swiftly paced, this fantasy sequel should lock in readers for the long haul.
An orphan faces unrelenting challenges during a competition to decide which teen is worthy of becoming the Tribe leader in this continuation of Caskabel’s (Drakon Book I, 2016) series.
Having made it through a ferocious 40-day trial, Da-Ren and 12 peers are next in the hands of Chaka, Leader of the Guides of the Uncarved. The 13 boys have no carvings, which are usually indicative of failure during the trial. This means that the best from the group could be the Tribe’s Khun (leader), if current chief Khun-Taa dies within the subsequent five winters. Some boys can’t cut it, with carvings designating them warriors instead, while others end up as corpses for the pyre. Their tests include braving reputed evil spirits populating the Forest and each boy killing an opponent inside the arena-like Wolfhowl. Unfortunately, Da-Ren may lose favor with the First of the Tribe’s Ouna-Mas (witches), Sah-Ouna, though it’s believed she knows who the next Khun will be. No one’s pleased that Zeria, an othertriber, evades Da-Ren during a hunt, but he secretly aids in her escape. While fate plays a part in naming the Khun, Da-Ren soon learns that some in the Tribe may have already chosen a leader. In this fast-moving installment, Caskabel picks up right where Book I left off, making reading the previous fantasy novel a virtual necessity. Da-Ren’s first-person narrative is striking (vividly detailing why some characters have snake-egg-shaped heads) and rife with anticipation. He, for one, teases a death immediately before it happens, and an older Da-Ren (telling his engrossing story to a monk) bears a scar whose origin is later revealed. At the same time, there’s unmistakable profundity: Da-Ren’s potential love for Zeria seems doomed, and many children deftly concoct Legends of fathers they’ve never known (like Da-Ren and his “dad,” Er-Ren). In a setup for Book III, Da-Ren contemplates his future with the Tribe, which has aspirations for conquering cities in the South.
Much longer than the first but just as swiftly paced, this fantasy sequel should lock in readers for the long haul.Pub Date: Dec. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5411-6371-3
Page Count: 376
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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