A promising coming-of-(political)-age debut.
A young Asian American aspiring radical returns home to Los Angeles for a few history lessons.
Reed, the hero of Wong’s debut, is the child of activists. His Chinese father is a labor organizer, while his Korean mother worked to unify LA’s Black and Korean communities in the 1980s. Returning home from a semester at Columbia, he wants to do his bit as well: Inspired by a case involving a Chinese NYPD officer, Reed is preparing to quit school and become a full-time activist. His experiences in LA, from a Brentwood yoga studio to a Koreatown dance club to a South Central chicken-and-waffles joint and a climactic downtown street protest, serve as a challenge to his easy Twitter-born outrage and idealism; determined to learn more about his mother’s Black-Korean coalition and apply its lessons to his own work, he mostly runs into dead ends. Wong does a nice job of framing Reed’s experience around some compelling characters: Reed’s witty and brash mother; his sage dad; and his best friend, CJ, who’s eager to pour some cold water on Reed’s idealism. (A fine set piece in the Koreatown dance club leavens the story while underscoring the persistent racism in the community.) But Reed, for his part, is something of an empty vessel, buffeted by the rhetoric of his leftist organizer friends at Columbia and his progressive but more earthbound parents. (“All I’m saying, my son, is to not take your precious theories so seriously,” Reed’s mom tells him, one of a number of similarly patronizing lectures.) Indeed, between Reed’s blankness and the brief, brisk story, the novel feels like an updated, more socially aware Less Than Zero. The tale of Reed's reckoning is compelling, and Wong thoughtfully questions various activist practices without rejecting them. But a stronger novel might better weave in the characters along with the back-and-forths on social justice.
A promising coming-of-(political)-age debut.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64622-148-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.
What would you do if you knew when you were going to die?
In the first page and a half of her latest page-turner, bestselling Australian author Moriarty introduces a large cast of fascinating characters, all seated on a flight to Sydney that’s delayed on the tarmac. There’s the “bespectacled hipster” with his arm in a cast; a very pregnant woman; a young mom with a screaming infant and a sweaty toddler; a bride and groom, still in their wedding clothes; a surly 6-year-old forced to miss a laser-tag party; a darling elderly couple; a chatty tourist pair; several others. No one even notices the woman who will later become a household name as the “Death Lady” until she hops up from her seat and begins to deliver predictions to each of them about the age they’ll be when they die and the cause of their deaths. Age 30, assault, for the hipster. Age 7, drowning, for the baby in arms. Age 43, workplace accident, for a 42-year-old civil engineer. Self-harm, age 28, for the lovely flight attendant, who is that day celebrating her 28th birthday. Over the next 126 chapters (some just a paragraph), you will get to know all these people, and their reactions to the news of their demise, very well. Best of all, you will get to know Cherry Lockwood, the Death Lady, and the life that brought her to this day. Is it true, as she repeatedly intones on the plane, that “fate won’t be fought”? Does this novel support the idea that clairvoyance is real? Does it find a means to logically dismiss the whole thing? Or is it some complex amalgam of these possibilities? Sorry, you won’t find that out here, and in fact not until you’ve turned all 500-plus pages. The story is a brilliant, charming, and invigorating illustration of its closing quote from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (we’re not going to spill that either).
A fresh, funny, ambitious, and nuanced take on some of our oldest existential questions. Cannot wait for the TV series.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593798607
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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