Compassion anchors a young theologian in this thoughtful tale.
A growing Twitter account provokes a papal inquiry in Parish’s novel.
Religion can engender feelings of anxiety about the constraints of church doctrine as followers mature into their understandings about life and the world. For Paolo Venticinque, an Italian seminarian working as a Jesuit high school teacher, those constraints don’t cause him to question his faith but to wonder how his faith can work beyond them. When Venticinque is sent to Jerusalem to interview men at a mental health institution, he is on a mission of “brand management,” as his superior, Bishop Giuseppe Malatesta, puts it. A Twitter account that has racked up 2.5 million followers and counting is being run by an unknown poster claiming to be the returned Jesus Christ. The men Paolo interviews have been “afflicted with a psychosis called The Jerusalem Syndrome,” so they’re all considered suspects who might be responsible for the account. While Malatesta deems the tweets a threat to the Catholic Church, Paolo questions the bishop’s assessment, because the posts are preaching compassion and unity. After speaking to the men and sharing his thoughts about his findings with his neighbor, Shirin, his mother, Leonella, and an inspector by the name of Viterbo, things don’t seem to add up. With a deft hand, Parish weaves into this religious thriller facts of historical relevance, sumptuous descriptions of regional foods (and the ritualistic attitudes that go along with them), and an admiring attentiveness in the depictions of his women characters. In the latter part of the book, however, the pacing falls into a less exciting rhythm as the narrative somewhat neatly wraps up loose ends rather than continuing to carry on the heightened sense of intrigue that significantly bolstered the earlier sections. Still, Parish has crafted a prescient and thoughtfully weighty story that reflects on religion’s effect on relationships and communities.
Compassion anchors a young theologian in this thoughtful tale.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9798891321939
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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
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