A love story that becomes elevated by a dynamic psychological crime drama.
A young reporter investigates a series of murders involving body image in this mix of romance and thriller.
Camarin Torres is on the brink of graduating from NYU with no full-time job to show for all of her ambition and hard work—that is, until a serendipitous meeting on a train with Lyle Fletcher, the new owner of a failing magazine called Trend. Fletcher, impressed with Camarin’s intelligence and passion for justice, decides that she’s exactly what Trend needs to head in a more serious editorial direction. They also sense a mutual attraction, which Fletcher, a middle-aged widower, feels uncomfortable admitting given his position of authority. On her first day of work, Camarin becomes intrigued by a grisly murder case involving the owner of a Chicago weight-loss organization. A quick search of similar cases yields the insight that a string of killings has followed the revival meetings of Terry Mangel, a man who has made a fortune on programs that tell people to love their bodies just the way they are. Every murder victim has in some way been involved in dieting or fat-shaming. As Camarin becomes more invested in tracking down the killers, she faces the resurfacing of uncomfortable memories surrounding her dead twin sister, who struggled with her weight and self-confidence. Camarin’s passion for her work rises along with her ardor for Fletcher, who, unbeknown to her, has his own secrets concerning these homicides. Barr (Expired Listings, 2016) has a knack for building stakes and maintaining a steadily intense pace throughout. The novel occasionally suffers from clunky lines, particularly in the romance sections, as when a sexually heated Camarin thinks, “While she wanted to stand firm in her resolve against discrimination, her impulsive streak beckoned her to explore the one thing she realized she wanted even more.” But the unusual premise of the murder plot brings a freshness to the thriller sections, and Camarin faces absorbing (if slightly reductive) dilemmas involving the ethics of journalism and the body-image industry.
A love story that becomes elevated by a dynamic psychological crime drama.Pub Date: July 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9977118-4-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Punctuated Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© 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.
