A fabulist fever dream that is perhaps a bit too opaque.
Professor Q’s “bland, uneventful life” gets shaken up as he’s consumed by his love affair with a doll.
Nevers, a coastal city on Valeria Island, is constantly changing to suit the wants and needs of its colonizers, but underneath the city is a “shadow zone” where the college students are organizing a revolution. Professor Q, a 50-year-old instructor at Lone Boat University, receives a package in the mail with a doll inside. He becomes enamored with the doll, Aliss, in a way he hasn’t felt before. At the encouragement of his mysterious friend Owlish, who tells him, “This could be your last chance for adventure,” he begins an extramarital affair with Aliss. He creates a “love nest” in a church on a nearby abandoned island so his wife, Maria, won’t find out. At first, Aliss is a normal doll, but one day Professor Q leaves a window open and a strange wind blows in, transforming her into an animate being. Professor Q, who was obsessed with her even when she was simply a doll, is delighted by her development of sentience. His relationship with Aliss remains a consistent distraction from the social unrest brewing in Nevers. He barely realizes that his students have gone on strike even though his classes are practically empty. As the book progresses, it becomes unclear how much of what Professor Q experiences is real and how much is imagined. The line between dream and reality becomes increasingly blurred as Professor Q’s sanity comes into question, making things difficult to follow. Chapters 29 and 31 change from a third-person perspective to a second-person narrative addressed to “you” and attempt to unveil some of the obscurities in the story. In the book’s best moments, it’s a wonderfully imaginative fable that resonates with political critique and protest. However, in some areas the book’s vision gets murky, like a dream, which is interesting conceptually but doesn’t quite work here.
A fabulist fever dream that is perhaps a bit too opaque.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781644452356
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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