A moving evocation of life in a time of terror, as seen through innocent eyes.
In Ethiopian writer Sibhat’s debut novel, a young girl chronicles civil war and ethnic division in the 1980s.
Selam Asmelash comes into the world with what, says a sister, is “a very large, abnormally sized head.” Her father asks what’s the matter with that, and the sibling, as if a sibyl, replies, “You’ll see.” Selam’s appearance will later prove a cause for schoolyard bullying, but for the moment, thoughtful beyond her years, she decides on a couple of things: She’s not going to walk until she’s good and ready, and she’s not going to be fooled by political rhetoric, as when, still a toddler, she proclaims of the new constitutional freedoms “Comrade Chairman” promises over the radio, “Liar.” Selam is not the only one resisting the alternate realities the regime promotes: Her grandmother, for example, holds up a black bar of soap sold in a government shop and demands of the dictator in faraway Addis Ababa, “He needs to tell us whether this is really soap or his shit in a package!” Selam, the conscience of the tale, finds her bête noire in, appropriately enough, a government functionary whom she calls Rectangle-Head, but there are other foes: the villagers who throw rocks at their house because her family is Protestant; the rebel army that arrives during an uprising against the regime, so quick to commit atrocities that, says Selam, “I am terrified of them even more than I used to be of comrade Rectangle-Head, whom I don’t even think about anymore.” Long since fully ambulatory, Selam, in Sibhat’s touching conclusion, puts aside these murderous squabbles of adults as the childish things they are and decides instead that she’s going to be a star soccer striker, scoring goals for all the dead of her family and village and even one for God, “the madman who created so much chaos while desperate to escape aloneness.”
A moving evocation of life in a time of terror, as seen through innocent eyes.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9780593298619
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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