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THE ALIEN STRANGER

Name: THE ALIEN STRANGER
Author: Bob Ticer

by Bob Ticer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2018

An intriguing novel with a tenacious protagonist, despite a few narrative stumbles.

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When an apparent space alien rescues a woman from an assault, federal agents and terrorists take notice in Ticer’s (Explaining Gravity and Hubble Cosmology, 2018, etc.) sci-fi tale.

Kayla Chalet is taking classes at the University of Oregon. She and her mom, Darcy, are struggling with debt from medical expenses due to the latter’s cancer. One day, while Darcy’s walking home from class, a man attacks and tries to rape her. Thankfully, a stranger intercedes—knocking the attacker out with a “barrel like device”—but he tells Kayla that he wants to avoid the police, as he’s neither a citizen nor carrying proper identification. She suggests that he’s an alien, and he confirms this by saying “I am an alien stranger.” They part ways, but she soon confides in her mother, who tells the police about the rape attempt. A detective believes that her savior may be “a spy with advanced technology.” Soon, the FBI is looking into the incident as well. Then the stranger communicates with Kayla telepathically. After she rescues him from a potential drowning, he rewards her with millions of dollars, which gradually appear in her bank account. Kayla and her classmates want to use the funds to combat climate change, but it’s later revealed that the money once belonged to drug-dealing terrorists, who want it back. Kayla’s relatable struggle for control of her life drives much of the story; the stranger tries to control her with money, and the authorities attempt to do so with threats of prison time. Ticer wisely keeps the stranger ambiguous, keeping readers constantly unsure about his trustworthiness. However, several prolonged scenes, including a discussion of the Big Bang and a sequence in which Kayla’s classmate John von Lay teaches her the game of billiards, have no bearing on the plot. Other parts are simply confusing; for example, at one point, the stranger asks Kayla to sell an extravagant necklace because he’s “in need of money,” although he later manages to transfer a fortune to Kayla’s account. Nevertheless, the ending retains some engaging ambiguity while still offering resolution.

An intriguing novel with a tenacious protagonist, despite a few narrative stumbles.

Pub Date: May 16, 2018

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 126

Publisher: Time Tunnel Media

Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD

by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...

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Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.

Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.

Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.

Pub Date: June 25, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

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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.