A weighty but engaging and readable tale about escaping the bonds of the past.
In this literary novel, a gay Afghan man grapples with an abusive relationship in America.
Twenty-four-year-old Abdul Ali fled Afghanistan as a teenager, seeking a better life than he had known on the streets of Kabul. Now he lives in Baltimore with his boyfriend, Cliff Edwards, who has a tendency to fly off the handle and smack Abdul in the face when he doesn’t like what he hears. Abdul is humiliated to go to work with visible bruises. He’s a concierge at a hotel near the city’s Inner Harbor, where he uses his off hours to study for the SAT. It’s at the hotel that Abdul meets visiting journalist Tyrique Williams, who has come to Baltimore to cover the recent shooting of an unarmed Black teen. Tyrique and Abdul have immediate chemistry, but soon after hooking up, Tyrique discovers Abdul’s bruises: “ ‘Listen to me, Abdul.’ Tyrique walked over to me and grabbed my shoulder to emphasize what he was about to say. ‘A boyfriend that hits you is just a boy. He’s not a friend.’ ” The encounter doesn’t immediately convince Abdul to leave Cliff, but he continues to admire Tyrique from afar as well as explore other romantic possibilities closer to home. But as West Baltimore erupts into violence over the racist status quo, Abdul is forced to confront the traumas from his past he’s long tried to keep buried. Baika’s vivid prose captures Abdul’s conflicted and often overwhelming emotions, as here when he embraces Tyrique after a long absence: “He wrapped his arms around me. He smelled like a thousand roses had rained over him. Not the usual common rose. Gol-e Mohammadi, with a more penetrating perfume. I took a deep breath to take in as much of him as I could.” The book grapples with a number of heavy issues, including the bacha bazi dancing boys of Afghanistan. The elements at times feel shoehorned together, though for the most part, the novel treats each of them with the appropriate gravity. While not a light read by any means, the book succeeds in dramatizing the ways the traumas of youth can shape adult relationships.
A weighty but engaging and readable tale about escaping the bonds of the past.Pub Date: June 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73463-379-5
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Unrolling Script
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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