Labari writes with candor, but she doesn’t have much to add to the communal conversation about mothers and mothering.
An autobiographical novel about motherhood by a Spanish journalist and fiction writer.
The narrator was in her 30s when she decided she wanted to become a mother. After several years and multiple rounds of IVF treatments, she achieved her goal—and found herself ambivalent about the result. She discovered, for example, that motherhood is time consuming and doesn’t leave room for much more, especially when children are very small. She struggled with breastfeeding and baby-wearing. Much of what she describes will be familiar to many mothers, as well as to anyone who has read about motherhood. The narrator doesn’t seem to have thought about motherhood until she became a mother herself, and she writes as if she is just discovering motherhood as a social construct. It’s possible that this is a matter of cultural difference—this book certainly made a splash in Spain—but American readers interested in critical takes on motherhood are unlikely to find much new here. When Labari is actually inventive, she is often bewildering. The chapter “On Horseback or In Diapers” begins with the narrator imagining a new father going to the store to buy a superhero cape and ends as a riff on Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law.” In between, she muses about whether playing with dolls as a child prepared her for being a mother. Labari spends no time developing any of these disparate parts, and there is nothing essential or revealing in their juxtaposition. In another chapter, the narrator quotes Penélope Cruz rhapsodizing about motherhood and goes on to say of the actor that she “has quit weaving her shroud and no longer waits.” Of course this is a reference to the Odyssey, but what is it supposed to mean? If there’s some connection between Odysseus’ wife and the star of Vicky Cristina Barcelona besides a shared name, Labari does not reveal it. The most affecting portions of the book are the ones in which the narrator describes how motherhood changed her relationships with her own mother and grandmother. These sections benefit from a simplicity and specificity most of the book lacks.
Labari writes with candor, but she doesn’t have much to add to the communal conversation about mothers and mothering.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64286-072-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: World Editions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
