by Barry Högström ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 27, 2014
With its endless wars and broken economies, this error-prone novel assumes a bleak tone.
Debut author Hogstrom’s naturalistic novel presents a dark vision of struggling families.
The story is set in Sweden and then in New York. The main characters in this tale—part mystery, part family saga—are the Seger boys, Karl and Seth, and the Lee siblings, Paulie and Agnes, who all grew up together. Secondarily, we have their parents, Adam and Victoria Seger, and Eva Lee (who is also Adam’s mistress). Then there is the mysterious character Gustav Lee, who walked out on Eva years ago. The time shifts from 1950 to the early ’70s, to the ’90s, and back to 1950 and the late ’70s and so forth, becoming quite kaleidoscopic. Then there are “dreamscapes,” chapters in which Karl dreams over and over of the night Agnes was beaten almost to death by Seth, who then committed suicide (or did he?). Finally, there are the scattered italicized chapters from Paulie’s viewpoint; these give us the flavor of the times, which usually means real and dire headlines of the day (the 1979 plane crash at O’Hare, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, John Lennon’s assassination). Still, although the time frame frequently jumps and the viewpoints shift, the plot maintains its coherence. Karl and Seth both struggle to woo Agnes. Seth is a struggling writer, and his frustrations lead to drink and physical violence. Meanwhile, Karl has a high-profile, stressful job with a pharmaceutical company. Circumstances eventually lead Agnes to return to Sweden; at book’s end, gay Paulie is in a therapeutic standoff with the AIDS that had threatened to kill him. Paulie’s tenuous victory and Agnes’s late arriving peace are not enough to offset the pain that the characters have suffered for 300 pages. Agnes and Karl—not to mention Karl and Seth—cannot open up to one another. Characters cry bitterly and often, but the crying offers no real release. Hogstrom has some success limning his scenes, but errors and misspellings abound. “Break, for example, is consistently spelled “brake”; “literary” tries to stand in for “literally.” Spotting these, becomes almost a (very distracting) game for the reader
With its endless wars and broken economies, this error-prone novel assumes a bleak tone.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 346
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2016
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
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Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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