Brutal and poignant; Dang writes beautifully about the complexity of adolescence and generational trauma.
An act of violence leaves a teenage girl hungry for more than revenge.
Veronica “Ronny” Nguyen and her brother, Tommy—the family’s golden child—are embarking on what Tommy calls “The Big Summer” as they get ready to enter high school and college, respectively. Americanized children of Vietnamese refugees, the siblings are pushing boundaries with their parents, Mẹ and Ba. When Tommy is killed in a car accident, the family is devastated and the gulfs among them—already filled with secrets and silences—begin to widen. When Ba’s brash and distant sister, Cô Mỹ, comes to stay, she brings with her stories from Mẹ and Ba’s past, as well as urban legends from Vietnam. While navigating unimaginable loss, Ronny tries her best to be a normal teenager by excitedly and nervously attending her first high school party. Unfortunately, this rite of passage turns into a nightmare when a classmate sexually assaults her—and something that had been dormant inside her awakens. As rumors swirl at school about Ronny, she finds it harder and harder to tamp down her rage and insatiable hunger for vengeance…and the sharp, salty, metallic taste of raw meat. As secrets about her parents and Tommy come to the surface, Ronny has to grapple with the realization that she has never seen the fullness of their lives: “I could only see them as what they showed me.” When Ronny embarks on her final act of revenge, she unexpectedly sets off a chain of events that brings her closer to her mother than she ever imagined. To move forward, they must do something they’ve never done before: unbury the past. Bound together with new understanding and tenderness, their relationship is forever changed. Balancing vulnerability, rage, horror, and compassion, the novel explores identity as both a blessing and curse.
Brutal and poignant; Dang writes beautifully about the complexity of adolescence and generational trauma.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781668065570
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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