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KINDERLAND

A disturbing portrait of social chaos leavened with charm and hope.

In a semi-abandoned Moldovan village, a 12-year-old girl must take care of her two younger brothers.

“Every village in Moldova is a village of children, the entire country,” confides Cristina Dumitrache, who's been left in charge of her brothers, 6-year-old Dan and the even-younger Marcel, while her mother is working in Italy and her father in Russia. Apparently a large proportion of the adult population has gone to work abroad, leaving houses empty, crops unplanted, and children without parents. Cristina’s mother phones and sends money for food, and the siblings have some relatives nearby, but essentially they live alone and unsupervised in a rural village alongside chickens, dogs, cats, and a pig. Cristina is expected to tend to the entire household, cleaning, washing, sweeping, feeding, while inevitably neglecting her own schoolwork. Moldova-born author Corobca depicts a national phenomenon through the specific experiences of this one small family, her anecdotal narrative sketching a larger picture of a community hollowed out by financial pressures. The village is a place of casual cruelty, the children purposely destroying nice things owned by their peers and causing animals to suffer, the remaining adults beating and abusing each other. Violence abounds, as do hunger and theft, but there’s also friendship, play, and the sharing of resources. Meanwhile, “scrappy” Cristina is beginning to experience sexual stirrings and flickers of empathetic adulthood while doing her best to protect the boys. This short, uneven work traces the children’s troubles and struggles while hinting at the psychological effects of their situation: Marcel, for example, has created a puppet version of his father out of old clothes. Episodes can be grim, yet Corobca infuses a peculiar buoyancy, too, with Cristina’s perspective giving glimpses of flora, fauna, ritual, and happiness.

A disturbing portrait of social chaos leavened with charm and hope.

Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023

ISBN: 9781644213278

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Seven Stories

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023

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BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

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Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).

In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.

A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.

Pub Date: June 10, 2025

ISBN: 9781250320520

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

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MY FRIENDS

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.

Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”

A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.

Pub Date: May 6, 2025

ISBN: 9781982112820

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: today

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

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