Nothing sweet on Sugar Street: It’s creeps all the way down. An unsettling, propulsive, sometimes acidly funny book.
A mystery man on the run alights in a grim and unwelcoming new world.
“$168,048. That's a lot, though it doesn't really matter how much it is once you've accepted that there will never be any more of it, only less.” Exactly how much cash he has left in the manila envelope under his car seat, later under his mattress, is one of the only things we ever know for sure about the unnamed White male narrator of Dee's eighth novel, and it's an element of the furious tension that drives the book to its brutal conclusion. The narrator tosses out a number of provisional backstories—he has a “nifty law degree,” he’s some kind of terrorist, he had a daughter with a terminal illness—which don't seem to necessarily be true, though every once in a while he does make a claim on the reader’s credulity: “I think it’s important to note that I didn’t ruin anybody. I just want that on the record, even though, of course, there must be no record.” Having cut every connection to his past life, he goes to ground in an unnamed decaying city, renting a room from an unfriendly tattooed woman named Autumn. She tells him there's a middle school nearby—because, she explains, he looks like a sex offender, so maybe he should rent somewhere else. His relationship with her becomes the center of his weird new life, but it, and every other interaction he has with the people he meets, seethes with mistrust and violence. He is acutely aware of the diseases plaguing his country, and his narration bristles with minimanifestoes. “Democracy, capitalism, liberalism: all in the lurid end-stages of their own failure, yet we won’t even try to imagine anything different, any other principle around which life might be organized: we would sooner choke each other to death, which is basically what we’re doing.” “If white people had a tombstone, it would read, ‘They Stopped at Nothing.’ ” This pronouncement will be borne out by his own story.
Nothing sweet on Sugar Street: It’s creeps all the way down. An unsettling, propulsive, sometimes acidly funny book.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8021-6000-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 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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