This hilarious, unremittingly jaundiced depiction of modern young adulthood hits rare extremes of both funny and sad.
A dark millennial comedy starring testy, needy Floridian Jewish sisters who move in together in New York City and drive each other nuts.
This is the kind of book you will constantly be reading out loud to others, so forgive the abundance of quotes in the following. “My sister Poppy arrives on a wet Thursday, dressed ugly and covered in hives.” Announcing itself with this sardonic opening line, Tanner’s debut is narrated by older sister Jules Gold, 28, who will have you laughing/horrified (this book’s signature combination) by page 2, where she explains that “to save fifty bucks on airfare, Poppy flew from the Palm Beach airport not to JFK or LaGuardia or even Newark but to MacArthur, on Frontier, then rode a shuttle from the airport to Ronkonkoma to catch the LIRR, then took a two-hour train that ended up taking three hours because someone jumped onto the tracks and died as it was pulling into Jamaica.” On the edge of a breakup with a new boyfriend, Jules passive-aggressively both invites and discourages her sister, who not long ago attempted suicide, from staying on. Continually. For months. Jules’ life is certainly missing something; her jobs writing literature study guides and cynical horoscopes, her obsession with Mormon mommies on social media, her relationships with her blunt, pyramid-schemer mother and plastic surgeon father—none of these things makes her happy for even a second. Mom to Jules: “I saw your Instagram story the other day—honey—you’re a little uneven, your smile on the left side is pulling up a little high still. You need to come in and see your father. I don’t want you walking around like that. I’ll pay for the plane ticket.” Poor, miserable, hive-covered shoplifter Poppy expands their codependent household by adopting a three-legged rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar—and of course they fight about her constantly. Only complaint: Given that we can’t help loving all three of these sad sacks, the ending feels a bit dark and unclear.
This hilarious, unremittingly jaundiced depiction of modern young adulthood hits rare extremes of both funny and sad.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9781668018613
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
