A vulnerable, sensual, and joyous journey about living and loving in one’s truth.
A deity and a mortal fall in love in this queer mythology retelling.
The latest from Kirkus Prize finalist De Robertis is a gender-bending and feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. Psyche, the youngest of three daughters, is wild, loud, and uninterested in taking a suitor. As tales of her beauty spread through the kingdom, crowds of leering men begin to flock to her home to see if the rumors are true: Could Psyche really be more beautiful and interesting than Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty? Furious and jealous, Aphrodite asks her daughter Eros, who reigns over love and desire, to destroy Psyche. As a devastating drought plagues the land, Psyche’s father gives her up to her fate by tying her to a cliff so her “monstrous” marriage can begin. Instead, Psyche is carried to a palace beyond her wildest dreams. Created by Eros, who has fallen for this human girl, the beautiful and bountiful home is shrouded in secrecy from gods, goddesses, and humans alike. Within the palace, they can be together—as husband and wife (or something in between)—just so long as they are always cloaked in total darkness. As Psyche realizes all the ways her dream home still falls short, she makes a decision that changes the trajectory of their lives—and the mythical world—forever. The novel deftly explores gender and power dynamics within and between the mythical and mortal realms. As Eros describes how their love is dangerous because of their rule bending, Psyche realizes that “cages” can and do “apply to women and goddesses alike.” Though the pacing suffers at times under the weight of the subverted mythology, De Robertis’ prose is as sharp and beautiful as ever. Their meditations on gender, desire, and freedom soar off the page. The author’s retelling provides a space to dream of a world where those “born perfect yet outside the rules” of their time may find ways to step out of the shadows and into the light.
A vulnerable, sensual, and joyous journey about living and loving in one’s truth.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781668035238
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
