An earnest and positive novel that explores heavy topics.
In VanPatten’s novel, a recently widowed gay father tries to help a niece whom he suspects is being abused.
After being disowned in Texas as a “sinner” by his parents, Jesse Pérez eventually finds happiness in California with his partner, David, and Matthew, their son with autism. Following David’s untimely death, Jesse and his child attempt to settle into their new reality. Another upheaval occurs with the sudden appearance of Gloria Salazar, Jesse’s teenage niece from Lubbock, who’s pregnant and reluctant to disclose details. Jesse accompanies Gloria when she gets an abortion, knowing it could be risky with Texas’ strict anti-abortion laws that even reach across state borders. Gloria wants to live with Jesse, rather than return home—but then Jesse’s brother-in-law brings her back to Texas against her will. Jesse’s reluctant to leave his routine-loving son, and he also finds himself drawn to Bobby Martínez, a widowed Californian cop he just met; however, he decides to return to the Lone Star State to help his niece. In this novel, VanPatten explores such difficult subjects as antigay bigotry, rape, grief, and religious intolerance. However, the story also has a pleasant flow, with natural, unforced dialogue. It’s very easy to tell the good people from the bad, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; Bobby, for instance, is shown to be a helpful police officer who brings Jesse’s son cookies and assists with homework. At another point, a protective services agent lets Gloria stay with her for a few nights, and Jesse’s former high school teacher tells him “I like to think I helped you on your own path.” Spiteful characters, including Jesse’s parents and sister, and a Texas cop who pulls a gun on Jesse, are shown as twisted by discriminatory religious doctrines, while others act from sheer ignorance. For the most part, though, this is a sweet story of how members of chosen families can soothe and heal one another. Although the romance between Jesse and Bobby lacks surprises, this fact enhances, rather than detracts, from the pleasure of reading this comforting book.
An earnest and positive novel that explores heavy topics.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9798873520886
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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