A short but engaging novel with complex characterization and a straightforward storyline that ends on an optimistic note.
In Currier’s novel, an unnamed narrator navigates a life of almosts in his relationships with friends and lovers.
At one point, the speaker offers readers a quick framework for his musings, saying that this “story is a memoir in the form of a novel pretending to be a memoir.” After a life spent in Manhattan, where he faced the deaths of many friends from complications from AIDS, the gay storyteller and wanderer moves to a smaller college town and begins to work at an architecture firm. Conversationally, he reveals details of his personal relationships, both in the city and in his new space. Some involve the tragedies of friends, while others limn narcissistic lovers and companions. Readers catch glimpses of his past aspirations to be a writer. Set during an era of epidemic, the novel effectively describes how a missed phone call from a friend could be a missed chance to say goodbye. In lighter moments, though, it describes a narrator who can’t help telling stories but also expresses frustration about how he spends little time writing. As readers hear tales of friends gone too soon and failed attempts at love with cheaters or people soon to die, they effectively catch glimpses of how they shape the narrator’s outlook and sense of self. The book is filled with compelling characters and its well-paced storyline gives the impression that the novel is just a start; there could easily be another engaging 200 pages about what happens next. The revelations are hopeful, as when the narrator discovers his role in finding love: “My expectations changed when I realized I was not as honest and truthful and trusting as I wanted another man to be.” Overall, it’s a relatable work that gives a voice to a period of suffering.
A short but engaging novel with complex characterization and a straightforward storyline that ends on an optimistic note.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781937627331
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Chelsea Station Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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