An evocative, if slow-paced, meditation about people caught in the turning wheel of Syria’s violent present.
A wounded Syrian soldier reflects on his life and times.
In this compact, stream-of-consciousness narrative, 19-year-old Ali, a conscript in the Syrian Army fighting in the civil war that’s ravaged the country for more than a decade, lingers between life and death after a bomb accidentally falls on the position he shares with four comrades. While the severity of his injuries is uncertain, his thoughts range widely and deeply over his short life in the mountain village where he was raised as a member of the Alawite sect. Ali’s brother, who preceded him into the army, has already lost his life in the conflict, and the novel opens with a vivid description of his funeral, one that Ali experiences as if it were his own. As he alternates between lucid and hallucinatory moments, Ali recalls his encounters with characters such as Humayrouna, a more-than-century-old resident of the village who “raised him and taught him the language of trees,” and Abu Zayn, an army officer and wealthy landowner. Yazbek, a Syrian journalist and screenwriter who’s written previously about the war in both fiction and nonfiction, returns repeatedly to vivid imagery of trees, rivers, sky, and other aspects of the natural world that are central elements in defining Ali’s character and experience. His broken body lies beneath a large tree that evokes memories of a more than 500-year-old oak tree that stood next to the prayer space in his village, and in which he once constructed a kind of dwelling with the assistance of his mother, Nahla. Yazbek efficiently paints a portrait of her sympathetic protagonist, a young man possessed of both strong religious impulses and a rebellious streak that exposes him to beatings both at school and at home.
An evocative, if slow-paced, meditation about people caught in the turning wheel of Syria’s violent present.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781642861358
Page Count: 168
Publisher: World Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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