Style, love, and hip-hop converge in this lively, likable novel.
A young Black woman navigates the treacherous world of New York magazines in the 1990s.
A foolish indiscretion with media mogul Alonzo Griffin almost derails Nikki’s Rose’s career before it starts. Luckily, a mentor in human resources hooks her up with an editorial job at a Vogue-like fashion magazine, with a powerful editor to match. Though Lucinda mistreats Nikki outrageously, she also promotes her to special projects; the magazine needs some perspective from their “magical negro.” With everything looking up—more money, her parents’ pride, the support of her uptight boyfriend—Nikki would be crazy to throw it all away to head up Sugar, a fledgling magazine devoted to Black women and urban culture, right? The opportunity to promote Black beauty is too good to pass up, though, despite the fact that she’s given just six months to make it a success. Getting celebrities for the cover, battling Alonzo’s revenge-based sabotage, placating her new boyfriend, JJ, a hip-hop mogul, and maintaining a positive influence on the culture is a lot to ask of someone just turning 30. Much of the novel takes place in the office as Nikki puts each issue together (and in the evenings at the clubs, where drama, rivalries, and Cristal flow), but the detailed view of work begins to feel more instructional than plot-propelling. Nevertheless, Nikki remains our girl as she navigates all the complexities of skin color, misogyny in hip-hop, the do’s and don’ts of work wear, the implicit and explicit racism of publishing, and keeping your oldest friends as you move up. The novel has serious things to say about Black women’s empowerment while also dishing up plenty of sex, fashion, and friendship.
Style, love, and hip-hop converge in this lively, likable novel.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781250378125
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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