An abandoned child, a nursing home escapee, and an angry, elderly shut-in make for a unique team in Davis' whimsical and touching debut.
Millie Bird is only 7, though she has already seen her fair share of "Dead Things." The most recent addition to her “Book of Dead Things” is her father. Millie’s mother, who is struggling with her own grief, leaves her beneath a display of women’s underwear in a department store with the instruction to stay put. After spending the night in the store, leaving notes for her Mum and hiding from the security guard, Millie meets up with “Karl the Touch Typist” in the store’s cafe. Eventually, Millie realizes she must disobey her mother’s orders and go looking for her. She arrives home to find it empty and in a state of disarray. While wandering the neighborhood trying to find someone to help her, Millie ends up on the doorstep of perpetually cranky Agatha Pantha, a widow who has sealed herself off within her home. Though Agatha follows a strict schedule, only allowing herself a moment to feel loneliness, the compassion she feels toward Millie forces her to leave her house. Eventually Millie and Agatha meet up with Karl again, and set forth on their journey to find Millie’s mother. Life exists for the young and robust adults in the novel, while children and the elderly essentially become invisible, allowing for a world where a child and an old man can live in a department store with no one noticing and an old woman can be sealed inside her house by overgrown plants. Millie's preoccupation with death is uncomfortable, as are Agatha's and Karl's obsessions with their own mortality and those they have lost, but this circles the central idea of the novel—death is the thing that none of us are willing to face.
Borderline cutesy, but ultimately powerful exploration of grief from a skillful and original new voice.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-95468-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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PROFILES
Hoover is one of the freshest voices in new-adult fiction, and her latest resonates with true emotion, unforgettable...
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Sydney and Ridge make beautiful music together in a love triangle written by Hoover (Losing Hope, 2013, etc.), with a link to a digital soundtrack by American Idol contestant Griffin Peterson.
Hoover is a master at writing scenes from dual perspectives. While music student Sydney is watching her neighbor Ridge play guitar on his balcony across the courtyard, Ridge is watching Sydney’s boyfriend, Hunter, secretly make out with her best friend on her balcony. The two begin a songwriting partnership that grows into something more once Sydney dumps Hunter and decides to crash with Ridge and his two roommates while she gets back on her feet. She finds out after the fact that Ridge already has a long-distance girlfriend, Maggie—and that he's deaf. Ridge’s deafness doesn’t impede their relationship or their music. In fact, it creates opportunities for sexy nonverbal communication and witty text messages: Ridge tenderly washes off a message he wrote on Sydney’s hand in ink, and when Sydney adds a few too many e’s to the word “squee” in her text, Ridge replies, “If those letters really make up a sound, I am so, so glad I can’t hear it.” While they fight their mutual attraction, their hope that “maybe someday” they can be together playfully comes out in their music. Peterson’s eight original songs flesh out Sydney’s lyrics with a good mix of moody musical styles: “Living a Lie” has the drama of a Coldplay piano ballad, while the chorus of “Maybe Someday” marches to the rhythm of the Lumineers. But Ridge’s lingering feelings for Maggie cause heartache for all three of them. Independent Maggie never complains about Ridge’s friendship with Sydney, and it's hard to even want Ridge to leave Maggie when she reveals her devastating secret. But Ridge can’t hide his feelings for Sydney long—and they face their dilemma with refreshing emotional honesty.
Hoover is one of the freshest voices in new-adult fiction, and her latest resonates with true emotion, unforgettable characters and just the right amount of sexual tension.Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5316-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Categories: ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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Named for an imperfectly worded fortune cookie, Hoover's (It Ends with Us, 2016, etc.) latest compares a woman’s relationship with her husband before and after she finds out she’s infertile.
Quinn meets her future husband, Graham, in front of her soon-to-be-ex-fiance’s apartment, where Graham is about to confront him for having an affair with his girlfriend. A few years later, they are happily married but struggling to conceive. The “then and now” format—with alternating chapters moving back and forth in time—allows a hopeful romance to blossom within a dark but relatable dilemma. Back then, Quinn’s bad breakup leads her to the love of her life. In the now, she’s exhausted a laundry list of fertility options, from IVF treatments to adoption, and the silver lining is harder to find. Quinn’s bad relationship with her wealthy mother also prevents her from asking for more money to throw at the problem. But just when Quinn’s narrative starts to sound like she’s writing a long Facebook rant about her struggles, she reveals the larger issue: Ever since she and Graham have been trying to have a baby, intimacy has become a chore, and she doesn’t know how to tell him. Instead, she hopes the contents of a mystery box she’s kept since their wedding day will help her decide their fate. With a few well-timed silences, Hoover turns the fairly common problem of infertility into the more universal problem of poor communication. Graham and Quinn may or may not become parents, but if they don’t talk about their feelings, they won’t remain a couple, either.
Finding positivity in negative pregnancy-test results, this depiction of a marriage in crisis is nearly perfect.Pub Date: July 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7159-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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