Not an easy read, but it’s worth it to see this flawed human grow.
A woman hits a tipping point in her life and has to fight to save herself and her family.
Annie’s mother was a Vietnam War refugee; her trauma response took the form of hoarding, and although she worked hard, there was never enough food on the table. So when Annie makes it to the Rhode Island School of Design and meets the wealthy, sandy-haired Duncan Shaw, she’s all too happy to be taken care of. Fast forward more than 15 years to where the novel opens: Annie and Duncan are married and have a daughter. When her mother dies, Annie finds herself struggling to stay afloat: Her daughter seems to hate her; her husband is always working; her art career is stalled; and her OCD symptoms, partly inherited from her mother and long dormant, begin once again invading her life. Sleep brings nightmares from a long-ago car accident and dreams of her mother, always accusing her of doing terrible things. Then her husband and daughter both leave for the summer, and her compulsive behavior only worsens. When her art patron disappears and is then found murdered, Annie becomes a person of interest—particularly because she has started to suffer blackouts and can’t defend her innocence. Is someone blackmailing her? Is she responsible for this violent death, and maybe others? Nguyen intersperses Annie’s present-day narrative with flashbacks to her childhood and early life with Duncan, and cuts to a scene in a hotel that happens at an unspecified time. These layers add complexity, and occasionally confusion, to the timeline. The descriptions of Annie’s OCD— which takes the particular form of paranoia about germs, dirt, and contamination—and her struggles to control it are particularly visceral. It’s not entertainment, this exploration of generational trauma and mental illness, and it’s not exactly a domestic thriller, either. But there is healing to be had in the journey and the ending.
Not an easy read, but it’s worth it to see this flawed human grow.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593473856
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
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