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KIDS RUN THE SHOW

An intelligent and affecting look at the void that lurks inside our social media fantasies of domestic bliss.

The search for a kidnapped child reveals the truth behind her curated onscreen image.

As a child growing up in the French countryside just after the turn of the 21st century, Mélanie Claux finds the only thing that can soothe the empty feeling inside her is watching television, particularly Loft Story, France’s first foray into reality TV. Raised in an emotionally abusive household, Mélanie moves to Paris at the first opportunity. There she attempts to break into the reality television world as a contestant and, when that fails, languishes working at a travel agency until she marries Bruno Diore and has two children, Sammy and Kimmy, who, while beguiling, do nothing to fill the void that is the most central tenet of Mélanie’s life. That is, until Mélanie begins to orchestrate little scenes for the children to enact and uploads the resulting videos to her family YouTube channel. Happy Recess becomes a viral hit, logging several million views per video and earning millions of euros for the family in endorsement contracts and advertising deals, an outcome that seems fair compensation for the near 24-hour visibility the children must endure to keep the channel running. Meanwhile, Clara Roussel grew up in Paris, the daughter of political activists who stormed the filming location of Loft Story in an attempt to free the contestants from their Big Brother–style surveillance. Unlike Mélanie, Clara was raised with care and integrity and brings those values with her into her career as an officer with the Paris Crime Squad. The two women’s lives are thrust together when Kimmy is kidnapped and Clara is called in to investigate. As the kidnapper's demands become more bizarre and the list of suspects lengthens to include practically anyone watching the Happy Recess channel, both women must reckon with the ramifications of living in a world where the most banal details of family life can be packaged and monetized and where the value of human existence is adjudicated not by the actions of the individual but by the reactions of the masses.

An intelligent and affecting look at the void that lurks inside our social media fantasies of domestic bliss.

Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023

ISBN: 9781609459840

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Europa Editions

Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023

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DEVOLUTION

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

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THE GOD OF THE WOODS

"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.

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Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.

One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.

"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.

Pub Date: July 2, 2024

ISBN: 9780593418918

Page Count: 496

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024

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