A wacky ode to the resting bitch face.
When a telemarketer is fired because of her face, she and two colleagues embark on a harebrained quest to take down their boss in this comedic debut.
Vanessa Blair never thought there was anything particularly wrong with her face. Though she made the occasional eye roll or grimace about yet another employer-mandated team-building exercise, Nessa certainly never thought her “resting bitch face” would warrant her getting sacked from a telemarketing gig at Directis. Then Xavier Adams, her smarmy, perpetually barefoot boss, terminated her employment on account of her face and “dark soul,” leaving Nessa with a measly three days’ pay and sketchy severance agreement. When her co-workers Jane Delaney and Trisha Lam have similar experiences with Xavier, the three women begin to ruminate on their time at Directis. What kind of work environment hands out Underperforming Employee of the Week certificates? After a drunken night of bashing Xavier, Nessa finds herself enmeshed in a scheme with Jane and Trisha to destroy their boss and uncover whatever fishy business is keeping Directis afloat. Hijinks ensue with a revenge plot consisting of glitter-bombing the office AC unit, stealing Xavier’s hairless cat, and the formation of the Bridge Brigade, an espionage unit comprising Nessa’s mom and the neighborhood bridge ladies. Even Carter Beckett, the hot tattooed unemployment officer in charge of Nessa’s case, can tell that Directis is keeping secrets. Can Nessa and her friends prove that Directis is more than just a crappy job before Xavier ruins their career chances? Reminiscent of The Office and 9 to 5, Ryan’s debut is a slapstick blend of comedy and heart, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and strong female heroines. It’s a wonder that Nessa and her co-workers stayed at Directis as long as they did—Xavier Adams is Michael Scott meets Miranda Priestly, “body slamming the English language” with phrases like “tweam” and forcing employees to play musical chairs dressed as mermaids. Readers will want to see Xavier get his due and will be grateful the women stick around long enough to show him who’s boss.
A wacky ode to the resting bitch face.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-72825-335-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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