An unsatisfying thriller that nonetheless contains insights into familial wounds.
Degani’s affable debut, a suspenseful novel about mothers and daughters, aims to be thrilling, socially relevant and heartwarming all at once.
Abbie Palmer feels unfulfilled. The married English professor with two children has never figured out what she wants from life. The heart of the problem lies in her unresolved issues with her mother, a movie starlet from Hollywood’s golden age,who committed suicide in the 1950s. When an African-American woman claiming to be Abbie’s half sister dies in a mysterious fire, Abbie and the dead woman’s daughter, Makenna, set out to learn the truth—not only about the fire, but also about the passions and pains of Abbie’s mother’s short life. This plot allows Degani to wade into some heady, race-related waters, including present-day hate crimes and past taboos regarding interracial relationships. However, she avoids diving too deep into these subjects, never swimming too far from the shore of her standard thriller plot. Although the book regularly reminds readers that Abbie and Makenna are in danger, the prose lacks gravitas, often relying on clichés (“My heart skips a beat”; “The past is past and maybe it should stay that way”) and overexplanations, which sometimes make the novel feel like a Nancy Drew mystery in which nothing much is at stake. The plotting also disappoints, as Abbie and Makenna have little trouble solving the mystery; each clue hides in plain sight, and the right person always shows up at the right time, making everything too easy for the amateur sleuths. It all leads to an ending that tries to be heartwarming but instead tips the scale into sappiness. That said, Abbie is a likable narrator, self-aware (“I’m a regular Kinsey Milhone from those alphabet mystery books”) and self-deprecating (“I’m ‘on leave’ from my husband to—do what? Find myself? Oh, God”). Also, in her portraits of mother-daughter relationships, Degani finds genuine weight, even if she sometimes struggles to bear it.
An unsatisfying thriller that nonetheless contains insights into familial wounds.Pub Date: April 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988125780
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Every Day Novels
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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