Hoop dreams with too much explaining to do.
After a member of the girls' high school basketball team in fictional Samhattan, Michigan, is gruesomely murdered, her surviving teammates fear an avenging ghost of local legend—a 7-foot woman named Daphne—is responsible—and is coming for the rest of them.
When Natasha Manksa relates the myth of Daphne to the rest of the team at a sleepover the night before a big game, no one is more freaked out than star player Kit Lamb, who is immediately overwhelmed with fear. Even as she wins the contest with a clutch free throw, Kit is consumed by the threat of Daphne, a one-time Samhattan baller who died a mysterious death many years ago. Then freshman-to-be Tammy Jones is found dead in her bedroom with “trauma to her face. To her head.” Could it have been Daphne? Kit suffers from intense anxiety, which she closely documents in her diary, and believes she is somehow responsible for Daphne’s return because she’s been thinking about her. As Daphne—who can be seen only by her victims but leaves behind the smells of smoke and whiskey—continues her murder spree, secrets from the town’s past begin to emerge. Daphne has inspired a cult following, perhaps because she’s covered in KISS makeup. Malerman, whose thrillers—including Bird Box (2014)—are uncommonly varied, now ventures into the teen sports territory owned by novelist Megan Abbott and the Showtime series Yellowjackets. Though he effectively captures the team’s group chemistry, this is one of his spottier efforts. Too much is invested in the theme of making a thing true “just by thinking about it”—and, ultimately, reversing that process—and the climax is convoluted. The book may well have fared better as the novella Malerman says he initially wrote.
Hoop dreams with too much explaining to do.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-15701-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
