Some portions of this tale drag, yet the likable protagonist’s final destination will surprise readers.
A debut novel focuses on the coming-of-age of a cinephile.
If Allan Paul Renner is anything, it’s affable. Renner was born near the end of the 1970s in Ohio, though he later moved with his parents to Florida. He enjoys films, music, and being kind to delivery drivers. The narrative takes place largely around 2016. Both Donald Trump and Hurricane Irma loom large in the present and near future. On a more personal level, Renner is in store for a few pivotal life changes. The book, though, as the title suggests, provides extensive details about Renner’s acquaintances. There is Akhil Das, an amateur astrophysicist who battles alcoholism and enjoys heavy discussions. Sadie Guildwood was once a singer in a semipopular band in Los Angeles and is now in her 40s and resides in Minnesota. Despite their geographic separation, she and Renner still talk. Fred Seelenfreund is a filmmaker and Renner’s former teacher. He helps Renner discover movies the younger cinephile has never heard of. Philip and Alice are Renner’s kindly parents while Ruby the havapoo (a Havanese-poodle mix) rounds out the family as the lovable dog. Carmen Villela is a beauty who exposes Renner to music he has never heard before while her son, Anxo, shows the protagonist a video game he has never previously played. Readers will follow along as such people move in and out of Renner’s personal orbit. It all winds up leading to a place that will throw even this eclectic group a curveball.
In Andrae’s novel, Renner’s relationships take him to some disparate places. After all, his friends are not just a diverse mix, they also have their own complex, engaging background stories. Whether Renner is having a crossbow pointed at him after talking about films or waiting for a potentially dangerous convict to audition for a part in a movie, the sympathetic hero, no matter how kind and good-natured he may be, has the potential to land in some sticky situations. But there are parts of the tale that lack much in the way of conflict. Renner spends a good deal of the book living at his parents’ home in Florida and enjoying the company of Ruby. He goes so far as to purchase a trailer for his bicycle, which also transports the canine. The purchase and subsequent use of a “medium-sized Pet Safe Solvit HoundAbout” could have been played for laughs or at least some turmoil. But it is not. Man and dog going for a bike ride is simply as much a part of Renner’s life as other activities, such as watching movies. In other words, there are times when there is not a whole lot happening to Renner. Nor is he having much of an impact on the world. But things take a decidedly odd turn in the final pages. Renner’s seemingly tranquil existence ultimately becomes upended in a way that neither he nor his friends could have ever imagined. For the audience, this is the intriguing part. Renner can’t simply enjoy an easy life in Florida forever. What shall disrupt it? The big reveal comes only at the end.
Some portions of this tale drag, yet the likable protagonist’s final destination will surprise readers.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64970-128-2
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Kaji-Pup Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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