A supernatural tale with a strong, engaging protagonist.
In Rosengard’s new-adult debut novel, a college student searches for the person responsible for her best friend’s death—with a little help from a familiar ghost.
Nineteen-year-old Callie McCayter escapes a gloomy life in Houston by attending Astoria College in the Pacific Northwest. She’s rooming with childhood friend Izzy Miller, whose parents took Callie in when it became clear her alcoholic father, a cop, was abusing her. But tragedy strikes during the friends’ sophomore year: Izzy is killed by a car in a hit-and-run as she’s walking home from a party in the middle of the night. Callie’s resultant despair causes her to miss numerous classes, and she may lose her scholarships, as a result. Then, one day, she sees the ghost of Izzy in their room. Her late friend doesn’t speak but instead uses lipstick to write a message on a mirror: “HELP ME.” Callie becomes determined to solve the mystery of what happened the night of Izzy’s death; she not only wants to find out the identity of the unknown driver, but also who’s to blame for the fact that Izzy was walking alone on a dark road. This entails interrogating four students who showed up to the party with Izzy and who apparently didn’t care that she was uncharacteristically drunk. Meanwhile, Callie, who normally abstains from dating, becomes attracted to two very different guys—seemingly meek Colin Turner and 20-something campus security officer Jay Houghten, an ex-Marine. Soon, she starts to experience Izzy’s memories, and, as a result, she starts to uncover quite a few secrets. Rosengard thoroughly develops her paranormal mystery plot, but the heart of the tale is Callie’s growing fortitude. She’s initially despondent after Izzy dies, but she eventually becomes determined to pinpoint every important detail of that fateful night. As the story progresses, readers learn of Callie’s other strengths, including her training in self-defense, stemming from her experiences with her dad. Much of the narrative centers on the aforementioned romantic triangle; both of the young men are enticing but flawed, making Callie’s choice understandably difficult. But they also have ties to the greater mystery—and they may be withholding important information from Callie about the party. Izzy’s ghostly appearances are sporadic and cryptic enough that Callie is left to unravel the whodunit mostly on her own. However, Callie’s memory-visions of Izzy’s experiences add a startling element, as they reveal a less-than-pleasant side of her friend. In one memory, for example, Izzy is irate when her mother gives Callie special attention. The mystery contains a handful of other shocking twists, although many readers will likely see a few of them coming. However, the author’s grasp of Callie’s first-person voice is sensational: The teenager endlessly debates with herself and harps on her own shortcomings, such as her tendency to distance herself from potential friends and romantic interests. She does acknowledge and work on overcoming her weaknesses, though—and readers will definitely see her virtues even when she doesn’t.
A supernatural tale with a strong, engaging protagonist.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5380-9012-1
Page Count: 510
Publisher: Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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