A fine read about dynamic characters coping with trying times, featuring astute narration.
Debut author Haylon offers a novel about a troubled college therapist and her clients.
Emily Metcalf is employed as a psychologist at an elite institute of higher learning in New Jersey. She loves her job and her daughters and is mostly content with her life. Then her husband, a teacher at a private school, is involved in a scandal that ends their marriage, and Emily finds herself leaning on her clients for emotional support as much as they lean on her, which leads to problematic situations. At the start of the narrative, Emily is a likable character who tries her best to help others, even while struggling herself—a sensitive soul who notices “the notable and the obtuse.” In the elite world of higher education, she attempts to help students navigate their interactions, expectations, and futures, and her patients are complex characters whom readers will find engaging. The cast includes Jelly, who comes to therapy to find a way to break up with her boyfriend; Mana, a high-achieving student from Nepal grappling with guilt; and Henry, an emeritus professor of literature facing mortality and grief. Meanwhile, Emily tries to find a way to move forward after the destruction of her marriage. As the novel progresses, the lives of Emily’s clients intertwine, and they find refuge in one another when Emily begins to fail them. Haylon has a distinctive narrative voice—attentive, witty, and all-knowing—and he wields perspective effectively, weaving the reader into the narrative as an active observer. He also compellingly presents characters’ backstories with a storyteller’s flair. His handling of the story’s setting is also strong, as he clearly understands academia and all of its quirks—from the admissions processes to the lack of adequate mental health care to the daunting demands on today’s students.
A fine read about dynamic characters coping with trying times, featuring astute narration.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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