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
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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