A love story with a lot of bark but little bite.
On the eve of her wedding, a woman runs into the teenage love who broke her heart.
Sam has her life all figured out. She’s got Jack, her perfect doctor fiance; a nice Manhattan apartment; and a job she’s good at (even if she might have just messed it up). Now she’s headed out to her family’s Long Island beach house to tour a potential wedding venue and finally introduce Jack to the kind of summers she grew up with, even though they might be a little less straight-laced than he’s used to. What she wasn’t anticipating was that Wyatt—the boy next door she was in love with all through her childhood and whom she hasn’t seen since she was 17, when he broke her heart—would be there, cheerfully enmeshed back in her family. Long-forgotten feelings bubble under the surface as Sam must figure out if the life she’s created is the one she really wants. The book jumps back and forth in time, starting in the present and flashing back chronologically through Sam and Wyatt’s growing-up years, relationship, and breakup. This means there’s a lot of buildup for the inevitable split, and it’s impossible for the breakup not to feel like a letdown. The story also feels lopsided in that the modern-day sections (with one small exception) are narrated by Sam while the flashback sections alternate between Sam’s and Wyatt’s points of view. While that structure does let the reader understand why Wyatt did what he did as a teen, it’s an odd contrast with the mysterious Wyatt of the present. The book would have been stronger if it had either fully stayed with Sam’s journey or followed both leads. Interesting side characters are left disappointingly half-baked to focus on fairly standard protagonists.
A love story with a lot of bark but little bite.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593544969
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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