Although Mossanen’s prose is at times sensual and haunting, the overall narrative never effectively transitions beyond the...
Mossanen (The Last Romanov, 2012, etc.) presents a dark novel steeped in international traditions about a woman, betrayed by those whom she holds dearest, who teeters on the brink of sanity.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and professional photographer Soraya’s reaction to her husband’s infidelity is no exception. The only daughter of privileged upper-class Jewish Iranians, she marries soul mate Aziz when she’s 15 years old. Soraya’s crazy about him—and that’s no exaggeration. During their 20 years of marriage, Soraya’s loved Aziz so obsessively she’s secretly taken birth control pills because she can’t stand the thought of sharing him with anyone, even their own child. So when Soraya spies Aziz in bed with her best friend, Parnaveh, she comes unraveled and plans her own convoluted payback on the unsuspecting couple. Telling Aziz she needs to fly to LA for a photo shoot, Soraya buys a creepy old home—the mansion’s atrium harbors a grave containing the cremains of the previous owner’s husband and provides a fertile environment for a foul-smelling, rare and toxic plant—and begins gathering the tools for her revenge. Soon, fluttering wings swoop into the courtyard as legions of butterflies (Parnaveh means “butterfly”) and an owl (similar to one her grandmother once befriended) appear and begin to roost in the trees. Soraya views these as good omens, but the author’s venture into magical realism bodes ill for readers hoping for a more straightforward, down-to-earth approach. As Soraya compiles a photo album for Aziz and readies her house for her former BFF’s arrival, flashbacks of her family’s life before and after the Islamic Revolution dominate her thoughts. The author awkwardly weaves these sections into the story seemingly at random, but the contrasts are nevertheless interesting and relevant to understanding Soraya’s mental state. By the time Parnaveh arrives in LA with Aziz in tow, most readers will already have pieced together what Soraya is about to discover.
Although Mossanen’s prose is at times sensual and haunting, the overall narrative never effectively transitions beyond the caterpillar stage.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8443-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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