Revealing if sometimes predictable.
Two Cameroonian sisters navigate the trials of arranged marriages.
According to the customs of their Fulani Muslim household, teenage sisters Ramla and Hindou—who live in a massive compound with their father’s four wives and 28 other children—have always known their fates rest with their family’s patriarchs, eager to “finally offload their responsibilities by entrusting us, still virgins, to other men.” Though Ramla and Hindou anticipate this eventuality, it’s no less distressing when the two are unceremoniously promised to, respectively, a much older businessman and a perpetually drunk cousin. “Patience, my girls! Munyal! That is the most valuable component of marriage and of life,” the two are instructed as their weddings approach, and a highly specific marital code emerges from family’s whispers and warnings—rules range from “Do not be scatter-brained” to “Valorize him so that he will honor you.” Intelligent and strong-willed Ramla, who dreams of becoming a pharmacist, is set to marry Alhadji Issa, a respected businessman with a beautiful and possessive wife; meanwhile, Hindou dreads a union with her drink- and drug-fueled cousin, Moubarak. As the weddings approach, the sisters mourn the lives they’d envisioned for themselves; and once they’re living with their husbands, they must contend with entirely new issues of power, autonomy, and social propriety. When one girl begins to encounter abuse, she must decide between upholding familial respectability and saving herself, bringing the family’s delicate equilibrium to a crisis point. In this English-language debut—broken into sections narrated by Ramla, Hindou, and Ramla's co-wife, Safira—Amal burrows deeply into the immensely private Fulani world of girls and women. Though the girls’ relationships with their husbands are sometimes flatly rendered, the book's real complexity lies in its finely textured depictions of relationships between women—mother and daughter, co-wives, sisters—full of jealousy, compassion, and emotional energy. Though it never takes any particularly original twists or turns, its excavation of characters’ emotional states and of a specific marital culture is engaging.
Revealing if sometimes predictable.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-314162-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HarperVia
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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