The bitter taste running through these tales can overpower the delicate flavors of which Burns is clearly capable.
Stories featuring unhappy women whose emotional appetites cannot be satisfied.
Sweets are everywhere in Burns’ new collection of short stories, her third. In the opener, “The Affair,” a woman on an apple-picking trip with her husband tries to inject their love life with a new spark by pretending they are having an affair with each other. At the story’s climax, the woman startles her sensible spouse by asking him to lick her diner breakfast’s whipped cream off her face. In “The Keeper of the Waldeinsamkeit,” a woman having an actual affair humors her lover’s fantasies about taking her to the patisseries of Paris with the understanding that their mundane reality means they will never do more than eat cupcakes in his apartment. In “Cakewalk,” a woman and her wealthy husband move to a new town in which the annual cakewalk—a bit like Shirley Jackson’s lottery—reveals the sinister underbelly of the seemingly idyllic suburb. The stories are so rich with desserts one can practically taste them, though if these stories are baked goods, they’ve got a large dose of cyanide slipped in, too. The women protagonists of these stories are disenchanted by both the men in their lives—who often treat them carelessly and distantly at best, as bodies to be consumed—and the other women around them, who can’t seem to see how feminine trappings—lipstick, dresses, buttercream frosting—become actual traps. Burns, as always, is darkly funny and her sentences burst with linguistic riches: Female rage can be delicious on the page. But the stories are nearly strangled by the vitriol in them, as if Burns cannot help but hit the same emotional note again and again.
The bitter taste running through these tales can overpower the delicate flavors of which Burns is clearly capable.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798985312447
Page Count: 255
Publisher: Tailwinds Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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 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
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