Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




Best Fiction of 2012: The Top 25


Cover art for DEAR LIFE
FICTION
Released: Nov. 13, 2012

"The author knows what matters, and the stories pay attention to it."
A revelation, from the most accomplished and acclaimed of contemporary short story writers. Read full book review >
Cover art for ZOO TIME
FICTION
Released: Oct. 16, 2012

"Guy's not a lucky guy, to be sure, but if there's justice, Jacobson will enjoy best-sellerdom in his place with this latest romp."
Bad-boy funnyman Jacobson waxes pensive and topical--but no less mirthful--in his latest assault on the foibles of modern life. Read full book review >
Cover art for BLASPHEMY
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"Whether recent or from his earliest period, these pieces show Alexie at his best: as an interpreter and observer, always funny if sometimes angry, and someone, as a cop says of one of his characters, who doesn't "fit the profile of the neighborhood.""
Sterling collection of short stories by Alexie (Ten Little Indians, 2003, etc.), a master of the form. Read full book review >
Cover art for BUILDING STORIES
FICTION
Released: Oct. 2, 2012

"A dazzling document, beautifully if most idiosyncratically drawn; in this iteration, sure to become a collector's item, though one that begs for an easier-to-handle trade edition."
A treasure trove of graphic artworks--they're too complex to be called comics--from Ware, master of angst, alienation, sci-fi and the crowded street. Read full book review >
Cover art for LAZARUS IS DEAD
FICTION
Released: Sept. 25, 2012

"Beard's take on Lazarus is nothing less than astonishing--and he respects the reader by taking religion and religious questions seriously. "
In this alternative theological novel Jesus does more than weep...and Lazarus does more than die. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012

"A great cure for the blues, especially for anyone who might feel bad about growing older."
A Swedish debut novel that will keep readers chuckling. Read full book review >
Cover art for TELEGRAPH AVENUE
FICTION
Released: Sept. 11, 2012

"The evocation of "Useless, by James Joyce" attests to the humor and ambition of the novel, as if this were a Joyce-an remix with a hipper rhythm track."
An end-of-an-era epic celebrating the bygone glories of vinyl records, comic-book heroes and blaxploitation flicks in a world gone digital. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE GARDEN OF EVENING MISTS
FICTION
Released: Sept. 4, 2012

"Grace and empathy infuse this melancholy landscape of complex loyalties enfolded by brutal history, creating a novel of peculiar, mysterious, tragic beauty."
The unexpected relationship between a war-scarred woman and an exiled gardener leads to a journey through remorse to a kind of peace. Read full book review >
Cover art for HOSTAGE
FICTION
Released: Aug. 24, 2012
by Elie Wiesel, translated by Catherine Temerson

"Nobel Peace Prize winner Wiesel continues to remind us of the brilliant possibilities of the philosophical and political novel. "
Wiesel takes us on a journey through dream, memory and especially storytelling in his latest novel, which concerns Shaltiel Feigenberg, who in 1975, is captured and imprisoned for 80 hours in a basement by two captors. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS
FICTION
Released: July 17, 2012

"A gruesome, unforgettable exposition of the still too-little-known facts of the Armenian genocide and its multigenerational consequences."
The granddaughter of an Armenian and a Bostonian investigates the Armenian genocide, discovering that her grandmother took a guilty secret to her grave. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE INVESTIGATION
FICTION
Released: July 10, 2012
by Philippe Claudel, translated by John Cullen

"A technocratic Kafka nightmare--heavy on surreal diagnosis of the world's ills, light on the traditional rewards of storytelling--crossed with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and a hint of Buster Keaton."
A spare, dystopian fable that examines how closely contemporary life has caught up to Kafka since the publication of The Castle. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE AGE OF MIRACLES
FICTION
Released: June 26, 2012

"Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving."
In Walker's stunning debut, a young California girl coming-of-age in a dystopian near future confronts the inevitability of change on the most personal level as life on earth withers. Read full book review >
Cover art for TELL THE WOLVES I'M HOME
FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012

"There is much to admire in this novel. The subtle insight on sibling rivalry and the examination of love make for a poignant debut."
Brunt's first novel elegantly pictures the New York art world of the 1980s, suburban Westchester and the isolation of AIDS. Read full book review >
Cover art for A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING
FICTION
Released: June 19, 2012

"Even so, Eggers' fiction has evolved in the past decade. This book is firm proof that social concerns can make for resonant storytelling."
A middle-aged man scrapes for his identity in a Saudi Arabian city of the future. Read full book review >
Cover art for BEAUTIFUL RUINS
FICTION
Released: June 12, 2012

"A superb romp. "
Hollywood operators and creative washouts collide across five decades and two continents in a brilliant, madcap meditation on fate. Read full book review >
Cover art for GONE GIRL
FICTION
Released: June 5, 2012

"One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are chilling."
A perfect wife's disappearance plunges her husband into a nightmare as it rips open ugly secrets about his marriage and, just maybe, his culpability in her death. Read full book review >
Cover art for CANADA
FICTION
Released: May 22, 2012

"At the start of the novel's coda, when Dell explains that he teaches his students "books that to me seem secretly about my young life," he begins the list with The Heart of Darkness and The Great Gatsby. Such comparisons seem well-earned."
A great American novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Read full book review >
Cover art for BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK
FICTION
Released: May 1, 2012

"War is hell in this novel of inspired absurdity. "
Hailed as heroes on a stateside tour before returning to Iraq, Bravo Squad discovers just what it has been fighting for. Read full book review >
Cover art for WISH YOU WERE HERE
FICTION
Released: April 17, 2012

A novel as contemporary as international terrorism and the war in Iraq and as timeless as mortality, from one of Britain's literary masters. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE COVE
FICTION
Released: April 10, 2012

"Even better than the bestselling Serena (2008), for here Rash has elevated melodrama to tragedy. "
Lonely young woman meets mysterious stranger. What might have been trite and formulaic is anything but in Rash's fifth novel, a dark tale of Appalachian superstition and jingoism so good it gives you chills. Read full book review >
Cover art for AEROGRAMMES
FICTION
Released: April 5, 2012

"At every turn, James' prose is crisp, observant and carefully controlled; unlike the narrator of "Escape Key," who grows increasingly aware of his fiction's shortcomings, James projects a deep emotional intelligence."
A well-turned set of stories defined by emotional and physical separation, particularly in the Indian-American diaspora. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE COLDEST NIGHT
FICTION
Released: April 3, 2012

"An exceptionally fine study of love, war and the double-edged role of memory, which can both sustain and destroy. Prize-winning material."
It's extremes that rivet us in Olmstead's searing seventh novel: the heaven of first love; the hell of the battlefield. Read full book review >
Cover art for KINGDOM COME
FICTION
Released: March 5, 2012

"Ballard writes brilliantly about the nightmarish underside of modern life, and this novel makes us poignantly aware of the loss of his voice. "
Ballard (1930–2009) creates a world reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange and V for Vendetta in this novel of suburban fascism. Read full book review >
Cover art for ARCADIA
FICTION
Released: March 1, 2012

"A novel of "the invisible tissue of civilization," of "community or freedom," and of the precious fragility of lives in the balance."
An astonishing novel, both in ambition and achievement, filled with revelations that appear inevitable in retrospect, amid the cycle of life and death. Read full book review >
Cover art for HOPE: A TRAGEDY
FICTION
Released: Jan. 12, 2012

"Brutal, irreverent and very funny. An honest-to-goodness heir to Portnoy's Complaint."
A family man suffers from money woes, a judgmental spouse and a hectoring mother. But things don't get really funny until he discovers Anne Frank living in his attic. Read full book review >