A funny and charming Hollywood tale, but one that could have been tighter.
In Thompson’s novel, a 31-year-old man in Los Angeles with few career prospects begins coaching middle school lacrosse.
It’s 2014, and Ryan Wilson is a 31-year-old aspiring screenwriter who’s become disenchanted by the film industry and upset about his general lack of success: “I was supposed to have things…Tennis lessons and Aesop hand soap. New restaurants I just had to try. The finer things. Thread counts.” This leads him to accept a position as a lacrosse coach at the private Brentwood School. He’s immediately annoyed by the self-important athletic director, Keri,as well as his co-coach, Colby Cuthbert, who lacks appropriate experience and seems more concerned with performing his best approximation of a coach in between comedy gigs. Despite his initial misgivings about the job, Ryan quickly takes to his preteen charges, building a rapport and giving them unique nicknames. He establishes a similar bond with a few of the parents—most notably, Camilla Tourney. Ryan is instantly taken with her, particularly after he learns her husband is a major producer and director. As their friendship, which begins as flirtatious banter, transforms into a full-blown affair, Ryan is torn between his desire for Camilla and his desire to sell a script. Later, the lacrosse team, which has improved under Ryan’s tutelage, makes it to the championship. However, despite Ryan briefly having everything he wants within reach—team victory, romance, a genuine career opportunity—he can’t help but get in his own way. Indeed, as a protagonist, Ryan frequently seems at odds with himself; his internal monologue is full of hyper-specific references (“Venice, California is the Wilco of Los Angeles neighborhoods”), yet in dialogue, he’s mostly vague, though affably irreverent.
Thompson’s tale of one man’s downward spiral into adulthood is, by turns, charming and cringe-inducing—the latter mainly when readers see Ryan falling headlong into a bad decision. However, the novel can be slightly frustrating at times, as some of the more esoteric references during scene-setting could warrant further explanation: “a guy who looked like he produced Doug Liman movies…was probably working at Lakeshore or Bad Robot or HoneyBucket.” For the most part, though, the story’s cultural references are its greatest strengths, as when one character notes how he’d be okay if his wife cheated on him with the actor Matt Dillon: “He’s just threatening enough to be bummed out about but for some reason I could get over it.” However, the dense prose gives the story a meandering fell, and sometimes even undermines the jokes. For example, after a disastrous sexual experience, Ryan muses about Camilla, and his aside lessens the impact of his one-liner: “She finally got the nerve to adulterize—yes, yes: it’s not a noble practice but at the very least the impudent act takes some gall—and all she got was the second to last verse of ‘Desolation Row.’” Thompson is obviously talented, but his constant, fastidious quips sometimes detract from the heart of the piece.
A funny and charming Hollywood tale, but one that could have been tighter.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781957184944
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Onion River Press
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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.
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.
