Nuance and humanity are brought to the celebrity story.
Issues of perception and truth are explored as a fake relationship exposes real feelings.
Whitman “Win” Tagore, a British Indian actress, is on the precipice of universal critical acclaim. The only thing standing in the way is her less-than-favorable reputation. When Win leaves a cheating ex-boyfriend an angry voicemail that is picked up by the tabloids, she and her publicist must devise a way to get her back in the public graces and back on the directors' call sheets. Enter Leo Milanowski, a former supermodel and wealthy son of a hotel mogul, who agrees to pose as Win’s on-again, off-again boyfriend whenever she needs a reputation boost. It becomes evident even after their first encounter—told as a flashback—that their chemistry is undeniable, and the public eats it up. Win must grapple with how the world sees her, her desire to further her career, and whether to allow herself to give in to what might be real feelings for Leo. In the hands of lesser authors, this story might have been shallow and clichéd. However, Clements and Datta give the novel grit, depth, and originality as they explore how Win must balance her need for self-preservation with her desire to expose the intersection of racism and sexism in the film industry. This tension is particularly poignant as well-meaning Leo pushes Win to speak out against the injustices she faces, such as a producer’s referring to her as “exotic”: “Leo had always thought she should talk about it openly. If Win wanted, she could become the spokesperson for her generation….She had tried to explain to him the tightrope act of making vague political statements...while avoiding anything more specific....White directors would be afraid to work with her, and white audiences would feel alienated by her.” While it is fairly clear from the start how Win and Leo’s story will end, this will-they, won’t-they journey is packed with emotional resonance.
Nuance and humanity are brought to the celebrity story.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-3490-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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