A studiously chilling post-apocalyptic tale.
In this dystopian debut, a woman with magical abilities longs to escape the influence of her scientist father, who wants to guide humanity’s evolution.
During the War of 2018, the Magical Bond, people gifted with telekinesis and other skills, decimated the Common Blood, who lacked special powers. Now, in 2031, the ultrarich enjoy New York’s high life while destitute masses huddle in the shadows. Across the East River is Research Island. Dr. Daniel Hunter runs the Institute for Scientific Understanding of Magic, where he hopes to reverse the gradual diminishing of magical genes within the populace. One night, Ebony, his daughter, is enjoying the solitude of the island’s lighthouse. She can teleport objects, but she’s also beamed herself there, a facet of her power that she keeps secret. When Ebony sees a transport vessel offload people in shackles, little does she realize that a quartet of covert agents from the Order of Peace has arrived. The group—Connor Vance, Katrina Hicks, Ness Kent, and Lina Sharp—plans to assassinate the Magical Bond who’ve been enhanced by Daniel’s work. They know the truth behind the institute that Ebony doesn’t dare acknowledge—that the demanding Daniel doesn’t want to build genetic bridges with the Common Blood. He wishes to obliterate them. In her novel, Bochnak taps into the fears Americans face in 2018 (like nuclear war) to jump-start a series that blends dystopian sci-fi and horror. A quarter of New York City, for example, is called the Levels after being bombed flat. The magic that characters use is less like that found in the Harry Potter series and more like the superpowers in the X-Men comics. Ebony is a riveting heroine who loves reading and her best friend, Maggy. Ebony’s also hopeful that her cruel father might someday stop treating her like an experiment. She describes a Jane Austen novel with blunt lyricism, thinking: “It was a crazy world about a woman fighting love. There was no magic, no technology, and loving parents. A world she could not relate to.” Bochnak unspools a disturbing plot slowly, for Daniel has much to hide, and even characters who die don’t leave the story too quickly.
A studiously chilling post-apocalyptic tale.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-948169-01-1
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Mad Goat Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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