Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




Best Fiction of 2012: The Top 25 (page 2)


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 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 >