Albert offers much to mull on the ethics of reproduction and the many permutations of inheritance.
As her creative powers ripen around the release of her fourth album, Womb Service, alt-folk-punk-blues anti-darling Aviva Rosner is consumed by the frustrated need to have a baby twinned with a spiraling obsession with the late Amy Winehouse.
Embarking on tour for what's hoped to be her breakout album, Aviva grapples with the eternal quandary of having it all and of keeping what's expected of her in balance with what she desires: She wants a successful music career while maintaining creative control; she wants to come home to her almost-textbook-perfect husband while indulging the occasional boundary-pushing dalliance; she wants a baby born of her own body without the intrusion of conventional medicine; veneration without the destruction of runaway fame; leaving a legacy without it being twisted to others' purposes. Albert catalogs the nitty-gritty rise and fall of each menstrual cycle, each recurring anxiety, each lapse into rumination on the death and, Aviva believes, widespread misunderstanding of the iconic Winehouse, each yoni steam and psychedelic journey undertaken in service of a dream that feels like a birthright denied, and traveling alongside Aviva on the long, fraught road of infertility can induce in the reader a feeling of claustrophobic recrudescence, like you're trapped in it all in real time. Aviva is someone many have known—or been—a version of, barreling through nuance with a dubiously informed politics and worldview yet a (nearly) unshakeable conviction in her own rectitude and righteousness, embodying that well-worn saying, "I was a perfect parent before I had children" (sub parent with any number of other occupations prone to abuse by the public), talented yet simultaneously under- and overconfident. Still, as often as Aviva's anxieties and flaws—and they are considerable (and not always handled with the narrative berth needed to avoid a creeping sense of complicity in the reader)—are fed by various lopsided satellites in her orbit, they're also checked by moments of real insight from wiser (and often ignored) figures in her life who attempt to insulate her against fully self-obliterating in a monomaniacal blaze.
Albert offers much to mull on the ethics of reproduction and the many permutations of inheritance.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982167-86-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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