A beguiling tale of people trying to edit their lives into better versions of themselves.
A library that records the future upends the lives of academics in Allen’s quirky fantasy novel.
After receiving a mysterious message promising help in proving a theorem, Boston math professor Edom Thompson discovers an enormous library with millions of rooms, one of which contains books that detail every event of his past and future—including a book about a run-in with a mugger that comes true when he leaves the library. Edom brings in his graduate student Thomas and his friend Naomi, an art history professor, to help him explore the card catalogue. When Thomas discovers a book that mentions his future divorce from his wife, Belinda, he becomes obsessed with finding out how it will happen so that he can avert the breakup. Subplots revisit crucial periods in each of the characters’ pasts, including Edom’s romance with his college girlfriend, Leah, who got him to break out of his rule-bound cautiousness, only to see their engagement break up after his one-night stand with another woman; Thomas’ sometimes testy relationship with Belinda; and Naomi’s adolescent battles with her tyrannical adoptive mother, who ignored her when she complained about being groped by a swim instructor. Allen’s intellectually rich yarn muses deeply on the nature of free will as characters struggle to perceive and rewrite their fates—a project that hinges on math, philosophy, and Naomi’s exuberant classroom lecture on the artist Chuck Close, whose paintings paradoxically blend abstraction with photorealism. He grounds the novel in lushly textured depictions of everyday life that resonate with emotional insights conveyed in limpid prose: “The quick hug Leah gave Edom would have been their first if Edom had not been too stupefied to participate. As it was, the hug bore the singular possessive form of someone briefly holding a heavy bag for a boxer.” The result is an entertaining read full of curiosity about the puzzles of existence.
A beguiling tale of people trying to edit their lives into better versions of themselves.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9781639911721
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.
The conclusion to the Villains trilogy asks, In a world where there are no heroes, what does victory really mean?
Schwab’s world is one where violent near-death experiences can engender ExtraOrdinaries, people who come back to life with a new superpowered ability, but lacking empathy, patience, and a variety of other, gentler qualities. In this installment, Victor Vale is becoming increasingly desperate; ever since Sydney Clarke used her power to bring him back from the dead, control over his own ability to cause and dampen pain has been slipping. Sydney herself is chafing against her life on the run with Victor’s protective ex-cellmate, Mitch Turner, and struggling with missing both Victor and her dead sister, Serena, whom she might not be able to resurrect—and definitely shouldn’t. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gabriel Gray, discovers the existence of ExtraOrdinary people and seeks to harness their power for himself with tragic consequences for himself and many other people. Because the narrative skips around in time, it becomes clear fairly early that a final conflict is looming at EON, a high-tech facility where ExtraOrdinaries are imprisoned and experimented upon. This series has really lived up to its title; while antiheroes and villains have been popular protagonists for quite some time, not every writer is willing to lean into the darkness as hard as Schwab does. Some of her characters were psychopaths even before their near-death traumas, which means they didn’t have much moral fiber to begin with. And even the people who are basically good do a lot of bad and often foolish things when faced with a crisis…and there are a lot of crises. The strength of this series lies in Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary power to make you care for many of these incredibly rash, ethically dubious—some verging on irredeemable—characters anyway. As a result, the story rises above the usual grimdark cynical slog; instead, this is a gripping and nuanced saga with an ending that feels both inevitable and well earned.
Who is victorious? The author and the readers.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781250192233
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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