A remarkable collection marred only by occasional heavy-handedness.
A collection of stories about nuclear power and its effects.
Japanese author Kobayashi’s second book to appear in English explores ground previously traversed in the novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity (2022). This is not a complaint: Kobayashi, who is also known as a visual artist, doesn’t cannibalize her own work. Her interest in atomic energy and its insidiously long-reaching effects on Japanese society tends to be deep and wide-ranging rather than repetitive. Kobayashi’s stories emphasize the experiences of women and frequently veer into the speculative realm. In “Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey,” a woman goes into labor in the summer of 1945. But is she giving birth to a baby or to a bomb of her own? As often as Kobayashi roots her work in historical and scientific research (“The sun is 1,400,000 kilometers in diameter,” she informs us in “Sunrise”), she also does so in rich and evocative metaphors. In “Shedding,” which Kobayashi apparently wrote at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown in Japan, a mysterious illness is spreading: The infected lose the ability to speak or to process language at all and are eventually encouraged to kill themselves. Even those who avoid suicide “lost their words completely,” Kobayashi writes. “These poor souls were called empty shells. An empty shell—as a person loses words one by one, soon their most distinguishing feature becomes their lack. Their lack of words. Tantamount to a lack of life, of existence.” But as this passage also makes clear, Kobayashi has the unfortunate habit, every once in a while, of hitting her mark a little too squarely on the nose. It’s OK, you want to assure her; we get it; no need to spell it all out.
A remarkable collection marred only by occasional heavy-handedness.Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781662601170
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Astra House
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.
Hung out to dry by the elders who betrayed them, a squad of pregnant teens fights back with old magic.
Hendrix has a flair for applying inventive hooks to horror, and this book has a good one, chock-full with shades of V.C. Andrews, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Foxfire, to name a few. Our narrator, Neva Craven, is 15 and pregnant, a fate worse than death in the American South circa 1970. She’s taken by force to Wellwood House in Florida, a secretive home for unwed mothers where she’s given the name Fern. She’ll have the baby secretly and give it up for adoption, whether she likes it or not. Under the thumb of the house’s cruel mistress, Miss Wellwood, and complicit Dr. Vincent, Neva forges cautious alliance with her fellow captives—a new friend, Zinnia; budding revolutionary Rose; and young Holly, raped and impregnated by the very family minister slated to adopt her child. All seems lost until the arrival of a mysterious bookmobile and its librarian, Miss Parcae, who gives the girls an actual book of spells titled How To Be a Groovy Witch. There’s glee in seeing the powerless granted some well-deserved payback, but Hendrix never forgets his sweet spot, lacing the story with body horror and unspeakable cruelties that threaten to overwhelm every little victory. In truth, it’s not the paranormal elements that make this blast from the past so terrifying—although one character evolves into a suitably scary antagonist near the end—but the unspeakable, everyday atrocities leveled at children like these. As the girls lose their babies one by one, they soon devote themselves to secreting away Holly and her child. They get some help late in the game but for the most part they’re on their own, trapped between forces of darkness and society’s merciless judgement.
A pulpy throwback that shines a light on abuses even magic can’t erase.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593548981
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.
A disturbing household secret has far-reaching consequences in this dark, unusual ghost story.
Mallory Quinn, fresh out of rehab and recovering from a recent tragedy, has taken a job as a nanny for an affluent couple living in the upscale suburb of Spring Brook, New Jersey, when a series of strange events start to make her (and her employers) question her own sanity. Teddy, the precocious and shy 5-year-old boy she's charged with watching, seems to be haunted by a ghost who channels his body to draw pictures that are far too complex and well formed for such a young child. At first, these drawings are rather typical: rabbits, hot air balloons, trees. But then the illustrations take a dark turn, showcasing the details of a gruesome murder; the inclusion of the drawings, which start out as stick figures and grow increasingly more disturbing and sophisticated, brings the reader right into the story. With the help of an attractive young gardener and a psychic neighbor and using only the drawings as clues, Mallory must solve the mystery of the house's grizzly past before it's too late. Rekulak does a great job with character development: Mallory, who narrates in the first person, has an engaging voice; the Maxwells' slightly overbearing parenting style and passive-aggressive quips feel very familiar; and Teddy is so three-dimensional that he sometimes feels like a real child.
It's almost enough to make a person believe in ghosts.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-81934-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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