Though the pace is leisurely, the narrative engagingly illuminates the mechanisms of the legal system.
Glenn’s novel follows the struggles of a southern lawyer.
The author provides a follow-up to You Have Your Way (2021) with the return of North Carolina attorney Eddie Terrell. Eddie gets his kicks from doing what he does best: hustling up legal work. He is an attorney who is willing to work on a wide variety of cases, be they small claims or real estate litigation. The early pages of the novel find him driving around the southeastern United States investigating leads. He looks into a situation in which a man died in a dumpster in Savannah and reflects on a past case involving a cheating wife and her penchant for writing erotic love poetry. Though he indulges in some leisurely pleasures along the way, like a grilled cheese sandwich doused in ketchup, he asks smart questions and does his due diligence; Glenn focuses on the nuts and bolts of practicing the law rather than melodrama. When Eddie decides against taking the case of a man who was crushed while unloading stone, it does not have an appreciable impact on him—he keeps right on moving (“the only things along the way that were inevitable were death and taxes and lots of cases that just didn’t work out”). The work is best when digging into details. Eddie may not be engaged in the high adrenaline cases of a John Grisham protagonist (though he admires Grisham’s work), but he has much to teach the reader about real jurisprudence. The author illustrates that preparing for a trial is a matter of distilling down a plethora of facts, laws, and other materials; after committing to a tragic medical malpractice case, Eddie has a lot of distilling to do. It is entertaining and instructive to see him in the process.
Though the pace is leisurely, the narrative engagingly illuminates the mechanisms of the legal system.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 319
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2023
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
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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