by Julia Kornberg ; translated by Jack Rockwell & Julia Kornberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 3, 2024
A striking debut from a new global voice.
Three siblings from Buenos Aires weather the eventful unfolding of the 21st century.
Kornberg’s debut novel, which she stylishly co-translates from Spanish with Rockwell, is presented as a collection of diaristic writings assembled and edited in 2063 by a childhood friend of the Goldstein family. It begins in Buenos Aires, with Nina Goldstein: “If you want to see a Jewish girl baptize herself all day, every day, you need only go back to the summer of 2009. With a time machine, a photo lost to the internet, a Daft Punk record.” Nina and her older brothers, Mateo and Jeremías, grow up in a gated community north of Buenos Aires with scant parental involvement. The music scene of the period, including the Cromañón nightclub fire of 2004, is a backdrop to their coming of age, presaging future tragedies and two of the siblings’ careers in the arts. As Jeremías comments, “Want to destroy your friendships? Form a band. Want to destroy a band? Give its members time, feed them candy, coke, ideological warfare, propaganda, fascism.” As the book hopscotches forward in time, settings include Uruguay, Paris, Berlin, Gaza, Brussels, and Tokyo, all in various dystopian iterations—Paris is the epicenter of a bloody hacker-driven revolution in a not-far-off future. Though their family is geographically scattered and one of them dies young, the Goldstein siblings remain crucially connected, retaining in their orbit longtime friends and romantic partners, a redefined version of dysfunctional family more lasting than anything else in Kornberg’s atomized landscape. Capturing a lost generation that feels both timeless and particular in its ironic fatalism and its various intellectual, artistic, and political responses to a broken world, this novel will be of interest to the international literary community.
A striking debut from a new global voice.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781662602856
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Astra House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
Share your opinion of this book
by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
210
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
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
Share your opinion of this book
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Liane Moriarty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2024
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Share your opinion of this book
More by Liane Moriarty
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.