A novel for those who like lessons in international culture spiced with lines about “a dapper, flashy, dangerous bad boy...
A debut novel about the plight of young women in North Korea (written before the recent death of dictator Kim Jong-il), with its socio-political insights undermined by clichés, stereotypes, plot devices and sentimentality more appropriate within a romance or even young adult novel.
The Author’s Note provides an unusual warning: “Parts of this novel reveal the physical and psychological traumas associated with human trafficking and sexual slavery. Because of the graphic and mature nature of these themes, the contents of this book may not be suitable for young readers.” A novel aimed at adults wouldn’t seem to require such a disclaimer, but it’s perhaps more fitting here. Particularly early on, both the tone and the subject matter seem more appropriate for readers of a similar age as the novel’s teenage girls, Gi and Il-sun, who become close friends at an orphanage and a factory despite the significant differences that will ultimately distinguish them. The opening part reads like a primer of everyday drudgery and illusion in the totalitarian regime, where they learn that they live in a "Worker’s Paradise," in contrast to the oppression of South Korea, where “imperialist Americans were harsh overlords.” Gi is comparatively plain and boyish, with a gift for numbers (that she keeps to herself), while Il-sun is “ripening into womanhood in the way some girls do, like a bomb exploding.” Though the two consider their friendship as “two halves finding unexpected completion,” there is little doubt that as Il-sun’s budding sexuality (whether ripening or exploding) leads her to sexy but dangerous men and ultimately to her pride in her sexual allure, she is headed for a fall. A very different fate awaits Gi, whose looks don’t give her as much to barter for her survival, but whose mathematical gifts lead to a surprising conclusion in a surprising place.
A novel for those who like lessons in international culture spiced with lines about “a dapper, flashy, dangerous bad boy whose smile had the effect of sliding her panties off her legs.”Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61620-077-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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