To prevent their marriage from collapsing, a husband and wife must make peace with their respective pasts in this debut literary novel.
Rob, a former professional paddleboarder, lives with his wife, Laura, and three children in his parents’ house while running a floundering bar. He remains haunted by his role in the accidental death of his best friend’s sister, Sandra. While out walking with Laura, he sees his old friend, Andre, paddleboarding, which revives his guilt over Andre’s arrest for his sister’s death, and his two-and-a-half year imprisonment for manslaughter. Laura, who senses Rob drawing away from her, runs a small bakery stand to help make ends meet; when she finds an injured cardinal on the street, she looks at her son, Nate, who’s still recovering from the effects of a car wreck: “Now, observing him in his wheelchair, she saw a boy broken like the cardinal that crashed into the window….What could she do about the bird, her son, or anything?” As this summary indicates, Crabb achieves a notable level of psychological realism by revealing her characters’ pasts via a series of emotional triggers. She also gives a highly visual sense of place to the characters’ hometown of Sanctuary, Michigan: “Still, there was no avoiding the glare of the midday sun blazing down…so much so that the village antique store appeared to squint.” In some instances, however, the author’s attention to detail works against the story; a chapter depicting Laura taking Nate to physical therapy, for example, starts off with a weather-based simile (“The wind shook the leaves from the trees that lined the cement path to the front door....The cold air was raw as her emotions”), but then delves into recording the characters’ every single word and gesture for several pages, which feels excessive: “Dr. Azzi…extended his hand to her. ‘Nice to see you again.’ Laura shook his hand before he and Nate exchanged knuckles. ‘How are you doing, young man?’ ” A judicious trimming of such passages would have enhanced some of the more meaningful scenes.
An often affecting, if slightly uneven, novel of familial adversity.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-95-121456-2
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
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Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
43
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The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Categories: ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE | GENERAL ROMANCE | GENERAL FICTION
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume’s latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha’s Vineyard, her life changes forever. Victoria, or more commonly Vix, lives in a small house; her brother has muscular dystrophy; her mother is unhappy, and money is scarce. Caitlin, on the other hand, lives part of the year with her wealthy mother Phoebe, who’s just moved to Albuquerque, and summers with her father Lamb, equally affluent, on the Vineyard. The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call "Summer sisters" is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. The years in between are related in brief segments by numerous characters, but mostly by Vix. Caitlin, determined never to be ordinary, is always testing the limits, and in adolescence falls hard for Von, an older construction worker, while Vix falls for his friend Bru. Blume knows the way kids and teens speak, but her two female leads are less credible as they reach adulthood. After high school, Caitlin travels the world and can’t understand why Vix, by now at Harvard on a scholarship and determined to have a better life than her mother has had, won’t drop out and join her. Though the wedding briefly revives Vix’s old feelings for Bru, whom Caitlin is marrying, Vix is soon in love with Gus, another old summer friend, and a more compatible match. But Caitlin, whose own demons have been hinted at, will not be so lucky. The dark and light sides of friendship breathlessly explored in a novel best saved for summer beachside reading.
Pub Date: May 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-32405-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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