A refreshing take on the classic media-insider novel, championing the value of passion and thoughtfulness over career.
Noora, a 22-year-old Iranian American lifestyle blogger, lands her big break when she's hired as assistant to the editor-in-chief of Vinyl magazine—Vinyl, her political compass, her guiding light, her everything since she was a kid.
She quickly learns, however, that sometimes things are too good to be true. Loretta James, her boss, is a chaotic nightmare, and the staff of Vinyl is caught up in an all-out turf war between Print and Digital. Between her fast affinity with the Digital team, her desire to write, and her reluctance to leave behind the woman she once idolized, Noora finds her loyalties fractured. Pulling from a mix of real-world scandals and pop-culture cues, Hariri-Kia has created a cast of characters who are vibrant yet grounded in their moral grayness while conjuring up the media-industry allure that's needed to keep Noora, along with the reader, pushing through an otherwise toxic environment. When Digital Editor Jade Aki gets canceled and freelancers start dropping off, Noora’s second opportunity of a lifetime arises: She's asked to write a column for Vinyl Digital. “For the reader” is Noora’s mantra as she navigates the tension between her goals and loyalties, consistently reaching for justification for everything she's going through. Her energetic and self-reflective voice elevates the book from a classic “old guard vs. new guard” tale into a sophisticated meditation on the function of audience. Noora learns there is nothing fulfilling in sacrificing your morals for an institution and that the most important reader can be someone who sees herself in you. The ultimate decentering of legacy institutions makes this debut the perfect reflection of contemporary attitudes toward the media industry.
A refreshing take on the classic media-insider novel, championing the value of passion and thoughtfulness over career.Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72824-795-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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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