An involving, well-written debut.
Reardon’s novel vividly depicts coping with mental illness.
Amelia Glickman can’t function without weed and alcohol and random hookups. And she can’t blame an abusive or even a chilly childhood. Her upper middle class parents’ divorce was traumatic, but they both love her fiercely and support her regardless. And they are even finding new and admirable partners. After Amelia, a longtime equestrian, puts her horse, Hope, at risk by jumping her while stoned, she breaks down and agrees to a “grippy-sock vacay,” a stint in rehab. Thus begins the lead’s long, hard trek to recovery, which will be the arc of the book. This means a series of dreary church basement meetings of fellow sufferers. But some of the sufferers become her fast friends and the little house with the red door on Wethersfield Road in Austin becomes an almost magical shelter and retreat. Of course, the journey has plenty of setbacks, stoking dramatic tension, often because of real jerks, guys who exploit her desperate need for love, or what passes for it. But through it all, at least she guards her sobriety and she lucks onto good people, like the wise Ethan who becomes her housemate (the key is to find people who have gone through the fire). She has a deep connection to her horse and to her dog, Delilah—no surprise that animals are more trustworthy and giving than so many humans. And she also has an eating disorder—bingeing and purging—which she managed to keep secret…until she can’t. One theme here is Amelia’s learning to accept her body.
A former mental health therapist, Reardon infuses the book with a passion for recovery and appreciation of life. Her background brings bona fides to an expansive, engrossing novel that might have been based on well-meaning guesswork and assumptions. Amelia’s recovery is slow and often painful, especially after tangling with Jerk #1 and then Jerk #2. Were it not for Ethan, she would be justified in swearing off men entirely. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen. (She does discover, however, thanks to an encounter with Cat, her old high school rival, that she’s bisexual.) Reardon, a skilled writer, has made Amelia a witty guide through the drama and pain. From feeling when we first meet her like “a scream looking for a mouth,” Amelia fights through all her formidable demons, many of which had been incubated very early on—no surprise as these things go—to being so confident that she can go to grad school and become a mental health therapist herself. A recurring scene, and theme, is the annual New Year’s Eve party on Wethersfield Road to celebrate the good lives earned, a riotous affair even though all the revelers are cold sober. Amelia is a frustrating character until she eventually becomes a celebrant of the good life, inviting us to share it, at which point she becomes all but irresistible. Toward the very end of the novel, there is a coy surprise waiting for the reader, one that explains much.
An involving, well-written debut.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9798992419870
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Trampoline Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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