A lively, if befuddling, novel that will challenge even the most diligent readers.
Stevens offers a dreamlike exploration of an extraordinary woman’s relationship with her erratic therapist.
Naomi Billingsley is an eccentric older woman based, with her equally eccentric husband, known only as Mr. Billingsley, in Mayfield, somewhere in the midwestern United States. She regularly visits a therapist named Dr. Birnteller, who regards his new patient as having symptoms that fall “somewhere within the grey area between psychiatric explanation and the supernatural or mystical.” The strange occurrences surrounding her are certainly too numerous to explain away as ordinary; for example, she survives an open bullet wound on her forehead after a routine fight with her husband, who survives equally terrible injuries. At another point, she predicts her own escape from prison, which occurs due to a mysterious earthquake. Mr. Billingsley, meanwhile, slowly turns into an aquatic creature with scales. The setting is absurdist, with characters able to take a wrong turn into Central America off a U.S. highway exit. Dr. Birnteller tries different psychiatric approaches to understand the various impossibilities in the lives of Naomi and those around her; he oscillates between accepting the surreality and suggesting more rational explanations. But Naomi soon begins to suspect that her therapist might be more eccentric than her or her spouse; he holds one of their later sessions in his office astride a white horse, decked out in a suit of armor. Stevens presents a brief, if meandering, novel in which readers never get a firm sense of the characters or their motivations. Still, the title figure’s adventures are intriguing to follow and are nearly impossible to predict; indeed, each turn this story takes is a surprise. The characters are less charmingly quirky than they are incomprehensible, however, and the lines of reality are constantly blurred, such that readers will often have trouble getting their bearings. Readers will be left with far more questions than answers at the conclusion of Naomi’s tale, which many may find unsatisfying.
A lively, if befuddling, novel that will challenge even the most diligent readers.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 127
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.
A young Navarrian woman faces even greater challenges in her second year at dragon-riding school.
Violet Sorrengail did all the normal things one would do as a first-year student at Basgiath War College: made new friends, fell in love, and survived multiple assassination attempts. She was also the first rider to ever bond with two dragons: Tairn, a powerful black dragon with a distinguished battle history, and Andarna, a baby dragon too young to carry a rider. At the end of Fourth Wing (2023), Violet and her lover, Xaden Riorson, discovered that Navarre is under attack from wyvern, evil two-legged dragons, and venin, soulless monsters that harvest energy from the ground. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. In this overly long sequel, Violet, Xaden, and their dragons are determined to find a way to protect Navarre, despite the fact that the army and government hid the truth about these creatures. Due to the machinations of several traitorous instructors at Basgiath, Xaden and Violet are separated for most of the book—he’s stationed at a distant outpost, leaving her to handle the treacherous, cutthroat world of the war college on her own. Violet is repeatedly threatened by her new vice commandant, a brutal man who wants to silence her. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. Secondary characters are ignored until a scene requires them to assist Violet or to be killed in the endless violence that plagues their school.
Unrelenting, and not in a good way.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374172
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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