A novel with thematic depth and complexity sometimes undercut by flat characters.
The lives of three very different Black women intertwine around the enigmatic chief executive of a Swedish marketing company.
Neither Muna Saheed, Brittany-Rae Johnson, nor Kemi Adeyemi ever envisioned themselves living in Sweden’s capital—a city, Kemi muses, so magnetic that “if Stockholm was a man and she’d met him in a nightclub, she would have propelled herself right away to ask him to dance.” And though each hails from different backgrounds—Kemi is a young Nigerian American advertising executive quickly rising up the professional ranks; Brittany’s a disillusioned Jamaican American model-turned–flight attendant; and Muna’s a traumatized Somali refugee—they share a vital trait: Each, in Swedish society, is marked as a Black woman and foreign transplant before anything else. Each, too, is linked to Johan “Jonny” von Lundin, the CEO of von Lundin Marketing and seemingly a manifestation of Sweden’s status quo—racially, culturally, and economically. In three interlocking narratives that eventually draw the women into closer orbit, each fights to carve a path within insular Swedish society. Kemi, lured to von Lundin Marketing for a position as a director of global diversity, must continually prove herself to her colleagues amid entrenched stereotypes of Black and American women. As her budding relationship with Jonny grows serious, Brittany grapples with the isolating, classist milieu he lives within. Meanwhile, Muna, who cleans the von Lundin offices, tries to stitch together a makeshift family to replace the one she’s lost. As the women contend with Swedish language, norms, and expectations, it becomes clear that as long as the interests of Black women remain subservient to White feminism, each must construct her own life template and determine whether its personal sacrifices are worthwhile. Åkerström paints an admirably rich portrait of a particular culture—its nuances, norms, and idiosyncrasies—raising important questions of prejudice, racial bias, agency, and belonging. Her characters, however, can feel predictable, and her writing, especially in romance scenes, often resorts to clichés.
A novel with thematic depth and complexity sometimes undercut by flat characters.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72824-038-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
I Who Have Never Known Men ($22.00; May 1997; 224 pp.; 1-888363-43-6): In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur (``I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct'').
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-888363-43-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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