A thought-provoking and engaging, if somewhat scant, exploration of complex racial and mental health issues in America.
A Pakistani-American physician experiences the post-9/11 backlash against Muslims in this short novel.
Osama Ali Khan is a revered interventional cardiologist who is based at the University of Denver’s Center for Cardiovascular Diseases. Tall, charismatic, with a “typical Kashmiri Punjabi debonair look to him,” Osama appears to have the world at his feet. This tale, which spans five decades, recounts the young doctor’s arduous journey to success, beginning before his birth with his family’s move to the United States. Osama’s parents have a tempestuous marriage that leads to divorce and, at 18 months old, he is left to be raised by his grandparents. He rarely sees his parents. When his father promises to spend Halloween with him but then doesn’t show up, Osama experiences his first panic attack. He attends regular therapy sessions, and in time learns to cope with his anxiety disorder. He grows into a stellar student and is accepted into medical school at the University of Michigan. It is there that he meets Sarah Suleri, a dazzling political science major of Pakistani-Italian heritage. Their friendship develops into a romance, and suddenly Osama’s life is blissful. Without warning, the atrocities of 9/11 change everything. Osama is asked by another student if he’s a terrorist. Faced with prejudice and racial profiling, Osama sees his mental health start to deteriorate and his relationship with Sarah come under strain. Akhtar (Miseries, Illusions and Hope, 2016, etc.) adopts a no-frills narrative, yet the bluntness of her writing, particularly in terms of mental health, has impact: “It doesn’t matter if an anxiety attack lasts a day, a week, or even a month. It makes a human being perplexed—as if he doesn’t fit into the world anymore.” The author is deeply in tune with her characters’ mental states and is always able to convey them concisely. Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close explores the personal psychological ramifications of 9/11 in far greater depth, and in comparison, Akhtar’s offering is more akin to a paint-by-numbers love story. Nevertheless, this is a captivating and imaginative narrative with a strong message that could benefit from being fleshed out further.
A thought-provoking and engaging, if somewhat scant, exploration of complex racial and mental health issues in America.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 81
Publisher: Inkwater Press
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the...
Brown presents the second installment of his epic science-fiction trilogy, and like the first (Red Rising, 2014), it’s chock-full of interpersonal tension, class conflict and violence.
The opening reintroduces us to Darrow au Andromedus, whose wife, Eo, was killed in the first volume. Also known as the Reaper, Darrow is a lancer in the House of Augustus and is still looking for revenge on the Golds, who are both in control and in the ascendant. The novel opens with a galactic war game, seemingly a simulation, but Darrow’s opponent, Karnus au Bellona, makes it very real when he rams Darrow’s ship and causes a large number of fatalities. In the main narrative thread, Darrow has infiltrated the Golds and continues to seek ways to subvert their oppressive and dominant culture. The world Brown creates here is both dense and densely populated, with a curious amalgam of the classical, the medieval and the futuristic. Characters with names like Cassius, Pliny, Theodora and Nero coexist—sometimes uneasily—with Daxo, Kavax and Sevro. And the characters inhabit a world with a vaguely medieval social hierarchy yet containing futuristic technology such as gravBoots. Amid the chronological murkiness, one thing is clear—Darrow is an assertive hero claiming as a birthright his obligation to fight against oppression: "For seven hundred years we have been enslaved….We have been kept in darkness. But there will come a day when we walk in the light." Stirring—and archetypal—stuff.
Comparisons to The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones series are inevitable, for this tale has elements of both—fantasy, the future and quasi-historicism.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-345-53981-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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