A collection driven by deeply human, sometimes humorous, but always exquisitely rendered details.
A new edition of Plett’s debut collection resurfaces 11 thoughtful stories exploring the lives of young trans women as they attempt to carve out space for themselves, set often in Canada and the Pacific Northwest.
Sophie returns to Winnipeg to spend the holidays with family. Lizzy and Annie wake up in bed together and begin a new relationship. Zoe helps her mother pack up her childhood home in Eugene, Oregon. These snippets of everyday life include friends with blue hair and blue hoodies that make them look like “an angry drunken Skittle” or text messages from parents that read, “Your room is a shithole. I love you!” They also come with an ever present tension, a feeling that the other shoe could drop at any moment. Many of Plett’s characters seem to sense this for themselves. In ways ranging from fun to awkward, from endearing to heartbreaking, they grapple with what it might mean for their physical or emotional safety. This subtle foreboding is particularly well served by the use of second-person narration, as deployed in stories like “How to Stay Friends.” Here, the narrator walks you through a dinner between exes and outlines what “you” should do next. It’s an exercise that becomes blisteringly painful when “you” recount the stalking and harassment you’ve experienced post-transition and then have to wait to see how your ex-girlfriend will respond. Will she commiserate? Attribute it to life as a woman? Offer advice about how to protect yourself? Blame it on your choices? It’s one of many scenes that evoke the feeling of holding your breath and that seem to hang in the air for a long while after rather than fully or easily resolving. In these cases, the focus is less on what happens than on what could.
A collection driven by deeply human, sometimes humorous, but always exquisitely rendered details.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781551529134
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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