An entertaining and thoughtful futuristic tale.
In this debut SF novel, a teenage girl and her empath must escape their totalitarian government to love each other freely.
Neve Hall, 17, is proud to live in the Nation, which emerged generations ago, unified by the Grand Expulsions that exiled non-Nationals. Soon afterward, climate warming caused mass extinctions, but the Nation has prospered thanks to a robust civil service consisting of four classes: Laborers, Soldiers, Enforcers, and Sufferers. The last relieve emotional pain through a combination of personal qualities and technology. When a young, leonine Sufferer (empath) steps in to protect a traitor—reviled in Neve’s patriotic world—from a bloodthirsty mob, she’s impressed by his kindness and courage. Soon afterward, Neve accidentally finds out that her new Sufferer is the same young man, Micah Ward, 19. But the Sufferer-Sieve (non-empath) relationship is anonymous by law. Recognizing Neve from their session, Micah asks her not to confess her discovery until his punishment for helping a traitor is decided. While meeting to discuss the case’s progress, the two fall in love, but Sufferers are not allowed to marry. They also die young, aged prematurely by the pain they take on, and can never quit. When Neve and Micah run afoul of the Nation’s harsh laws, Neve vows to find a way out by journeying north to the New American Republic of the Atlantic, or Nara, which has snow, wild animals, and freedom. But escaping won’t be easy. In this series opener, Marin provides a well-rounded picture of a plausible future with aspects relatable to today, such as the Nation’s anti-immigrant policies and its bleak border wall. The relationship between Neve and Micah goes deeper than physical attraction. Through him, Neve learns of the Nation’s limitations and cruelties, helping her to grow in perspective, and his bravery inspires her to risk all to save him. Meanwhile, Micah finds comfort in Neve’s tenderness. At times, Neve insists on rather pointless and even dangerous self-sacrifices, such as wearing a conspicuous red traitor’s armband when she’s on the run, but this is consistent with a teenager’s melodramatic emotions.
An entertaining and thoughtful futuristic tale.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949931-20-4
Page Count: 237
Publisher: Inkspell Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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