An endearing, if sometimes painful, read for animal lovers and a wake-up call for everyone else.
This spiritual novel by Moritsch (The Soul of Yosemite, 2012) tells interweaving stories of wolves and their human advocates.
In December 2013, Sage McAllister lives in a log cabin on a privately owned tract of land in Yosemite National Park. One night, two adult gray wolves appear on her deck. Sage is a former biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, so she knows that the last wolf in California was killed in 1924, making her new visitors quite miraculous. Even more incredible, the wolves speak to her, introducing themselves as Tish and Issa. They explain that they approached her because she’s a writer and they want their story told. In order to help her better record their journey, the wolves gently nip the back of her neck and bring her consciousness into “Wolf Time,” allowing her to take mental excursions into their past. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Blue is about to join Idaho’s hunting culture at the behest of his Uncle Marshall, even though the boy and his 7-year-old sister, Sunny, respect animals and find them beautiful. The siblings discover a wolf den near their house and bring home a sickly, abandoned pup. Can their love for the wolves spread to the ranchers, hunters, and others like Uncle Marshall who seek to exterminate the species? The book eventually connects several characters through a spiritual network that includes deceased wolves and humans who realize that “once fear moves out of a person, compassion can move in.” Ecologist Moritsch delivers an advocacy narrative that initially feels playful. Its use of talking animals will broaden its appeal to middle-grade audiences. Its dreamy prose and shocking statistics, though, will draw in teens and adults; during Sage’s transition to Wolf Time, for example, she says that “It felt as if I descended a long distance...floating backwards down a spiral staircase.” Moritsch goes on to inform readers that in the last century, there have only been two humans allegedly killed by wolves (in 2005 and 2010); domestic dogs, however, “kill between twenty and thirty people every year,” the book notes.
An endearing, if sometimes painful, read for animal lovers and a wake-up call for everyone else.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 293
Publisher: CJM Books
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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