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Underdeveloped characters dampen this well-intentioned, thoughtful tale.
A woman grapples with the long aftermath of having been sexually abused by her childhood priest.
Growing up a Catholic schoolgirl in 1970s Ontario, the nameless protagonist of Bondy’s debut novel does just about everything that's expected of her, from joining the choir to helping out the priest at the rectory with various tasks. The narrator knows she’s no standout, and she likes it that way: “I’d always been quiet…I wore quiet like a woolen shawl, protective and comforting.” But it is perhaps this very lack of remarkableness that makes her a target for the pedophile priest—”Father Feeler”—at her parish. Years later, after she's found her calling by opening up her home as a hospice for gay men dying of AIDS—who were mistreated, or failed to be treated, at traditional hospitals and banned from seeing their partners or friends—other victims of the priest begin to come forward. As the narrator weighs whether or not to join them in telling her story, she learns the insidious power that secrets have to fracture families and communities—as well as how healing might be possible. In the novel’s afterword, Bondy reveals the novel’s inspiration as a real-life case out of Chatham, Ontario, and her desire to explore the lesser-known stories of female victims of church abuse. The necessity for home hospice networks for AIDS patients in the 1980s was also, sadly, very real. Bondy’s decision to juxtapose the two scenarios gives the novel much of its power. But the nameless protagonist—who sometimes shifts into the plural first person—seems designed to be a kind of everywoman for victims and so never develops a vivid personhood of her own, undoing some of Bondy’s intentions to move and outrage the reader through the power of fiction.
Underdeveloped characters dampen this well-intentioned, thoughtful tale.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781772603927
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
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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