A gripping tale that will leave readers wondering what death-defying feat the hero will perform in the next series entry.
Be careful what you wish for is the message at the heart of this techno-thriller.
In this second installment of Levin’s (Not So Dead, 2017) series, technologist Sam Sunborn is “living” in the virtual world he shares with his partner, Frank Einstein, where their essences have been residing since both were killed by terrorists. But Sam has to find a way to assume a physical form after his son, Evan, is kidnapped by henchmen of The Cub, the younger brother of a terrorist killed in the series’ first volume. That’s because The Cub has nefarious plans to attack the United States, and he needs some way to take Sam and Frank out of the picture. So Sam and two associates use an untested technique to place his consciousness inside the body of Juan Valiente, a drugged inmate at a Mexican asylum. The problem is that Juan’s consciousness is also still inside his body. They have to find a way to coexist: “We’ll figure this out.…I’ve made some mistakes and this might be one of the bigger ones, but for now we’re in this together,” Sam asserts. Sam/Juan works with Department of Homeland Security agents Rich Little and Michelle Hadar to rescue Evan and determine and disrupt The Cub’s plan, which involves sabotaging the American food supply. The most terrifying part of Levin’s narrative is that most of the science he employs is now feasible, other than shifting people’s essences in and out of a virtual world. But when the action hums like it does here, readers won’t stop too long to ponder the technology. Sam and his allies have to play catch-up with The Cub, who has the advantage of having a hacker inside the DHS. Unfortunately, Sam moves a lot slower in his new body. Fresh allies are introduced while others are lost. This novel reads much shorter than it is, as the author keeps his ample cast of characters on the run trying to prevent doomsday. This is another winner for Levin that admirably balances the pluses and minuses of scientific advances in the service of good and evil.
A gripping tale that will leave readers wondering what death-defying feat the hero will perform in the next series entry.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-578-41768-4
Page Count: 374
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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